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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



the Cambridge Literature Series. 

EDITED BY 

THOMAS HALL, JR., A.B., 

INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH IN HARVARD UNIVERSITYc 



Ttbe 

Cambnboe literature Series 



NAMES OF EDITORS. 

THOMAS HALL, Jr., A.B., 

Harvard University, General Editor* 



RAYMOND M. ALDEN, Ph.D., Leland Stanford, Jr., Uni- 
versity. 

J, GRIFFITH AMES, Lit. B., Professor in Illinois College. 

FREDERICK L. BLISS, A.M., Principal of Detroit University 
School. 

CORNELIUS B. BRADLEY, Ph.D., Professor in the Uni- 
versity of California. 

ANNA A. FISHER, A.M., late Professor in the University of 
Denver. 

JOHN PHELPS FRUIT, Ph.D., Professor in William Jewell 
College, Mo. 

PHILIP GENTNER, A.B., Fellow in Harvard University. 

HENRY B. HUNTINGTON, A.B., Instructor in Harvard 
University. 

AGNES M. LATHE, A.M., late Professor in Woman's Col- 
lege, Baltimore. 

EDWARD S. PARSONS. A.M., Professor in Colorado Col- 
lege. 

ROBERT JOHN PETERS, A.M., Professor in Missouri 
Valley College. 

LEWIS W. SMITH. Ph.B., Professor in Tabor (la.) College. 

ELLEN A. VINTON, A.M., Instructor in Literature, Wash- 
ington, D. C. 
[Si] 



Number 6 



POPE 

THE ILIAD OF HOMER 

BOOKS L, VI., XXIL, and XXIV. 



EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY 

PHILIP; GENTNER, B. A. 

Late Instructor in English in Indiana University 



ov noXX alia no\v 






BENJ. H. SANBORN & CO. 
BOSTON, U. S. A. 



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|THE LIBRARY Of 

CONGRESS, 

One Copy REcetvo 

AUG. 5 1902 

COPVmOHT EKTRV 

No. 




ri uti iv* 



Copyright, 1899, 
By Philip Gentner. 



F. H. GILSON COMPANY 

PRINTERS AND BOOKBINDERS 

BOSTON, U. S. A. 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction. page 

I. Pope's Iliad i 

II. Homer's Iliad xxix 

III. The v^Jomeric World liii 

IV. Suggestions to Teachers lxix 

V. Bibliography lxxi 

The Iliad 1 

Notms . . 129 



INTRODUCTION. 



I. POPE'S ILIAD. 

1. INTRODUCTION. 

Difficulties of translating Homer, — Whether a satisfac- 
tory translation of any great poem can be made, is a 
question which we need not long discuss. Probably it is 
just as easy to translate well a mediocre work, as it is for a 
good actor to impersonate a mediocre type of character ; 
and just as difficult to translate a rare masterpiece, as it 
would be for the actor to assume convincingly the charac- 
ter of King David, Alexander, Charlemagne, or Michael 
Angelo. Success in such parts as the last, before a cul- 
tured audience, would demand of the actor not only con- 
summate art, but also a nature nearly as great as that of 
the personage represented. Perhaps Marlowe, the Eliza- 
bethan dramatist, had the right genius to render iEschylus 
as pleasingly as Longfellow has rendered some German 
poems of merit ; and perhaps Shakspere could have given 
us a fit version of Homer. All we can say is, that no 
such translations of supreme originals have ever been 

i 



11 POPE'S ILIAD. 

made, and that it seems practically impossible to make 
them. If, as Coleridge has maintained, the meaning of 
great poetry is so inseparably fused with the shades of a 
language, and so permeated with the under-tones and 
side-suggestions which each word has acquired, that trans- 
lation into phrases of even the same language will injure 
the sense and the feeling, we can realize how formidable 
is the task of rendering such poetry in a foreign tongue. 
If, again, as is often contended [see page xxxi] , the Ho- 
meric poems are the result of ages of poetic endeavor, and 
represent the range not of one genius, but of many gen- 
iuses, the task becomes stupendous, and even a simple 
prose version may, as in the case of the English Bible, 
require the sympathetic cooperation of numerous transla- 
tors. Certainly, the very best prose translation of the Iliad 
which we possess in English, that of Messrs. Lang, Leaf 
and Myers, abounds in faults; it smells distinctly of the 
lamp, is heavy and monotonous in rhythm, wordy in 
phraseology, and far more Hebraic than Greek in its 
many archaisms. 

Even partial success is praiseworthy. — It is plain from 
all this, that any rendering of the Iliad, and especially a 
poetic one, no matter how good it may be when judged by 
ordinary standards, is sure to be poor when compared 
with the original ; and that any true analysis of the trans- 
lation will disparage more than it will praise, just as is 
the case when we compare Tennyson's Maud with Shak- 
spere's Hamlet, or the talent of Wellington with the genius 



INTRODUCTION. Ill 

of Napoleon. The two things are upon entirely different 
levels. But to be tried with any success at all by such a 
standard is in itself high honor. This we must never for- 
get, even when our criticism is most severe. 

Three notable translations . — Many English poets have 
tried to translate Homer. Three in particular have partly 
succeeded in some respects, though signally failing in 
others: Chapman [1557-1634], Pope [1688-1744], and 
Cowper [1731-1800].i 

Thus Chapman secures an animated swiftness of move- 
ment, but not the easy, rapid, varied flowingness of Homer. 
At its worst Chapman's movement is a ponderous bear-trot ; 
and at its best a resonant, clanking swiftness, aglow with 
fire. But even this broken or jarring rapidity, in place of 
the fluid one of Homer, is gained at the loss of plainness of 
idea, of simplicity in expression, and of nobleness of man- 
ner. His style is loose, tortuous, and archaic, and its ideas 
are often curious, fantastic, and irrational. But, condemn 
this version as we may, it is the one mature students like 
best, as young students do Pope's ; and its earnestness and 
passion and the spirit of battle and of vigorous living that 
it expresses make it worthy of Keats 's fine sonnet about it. 
Cowper's chief merit is his faithfulness to the separate 
ideas of the original; his chief fault, a cumbrous, elabo- 
rated, self-retarding style — << a Milton without music." 
Pope's edition, like its precursor, Chapman's, and its 

i Other meritorious translations of the Iliad are those by Lord Derby, 
Worsley and Conington, Bryant, and Way. 



IV POPE'S ILIAD. 

successor, Cowpe^s, has its peculiar virtues and failings. 
Before considering these in detail, let us examine the 
qualities both of himself and of his age, that he brought 
to his work. 

2. POPE'S LITERARY .CHARACTERISTICS. 

Pope's personality A — He was of dwarfish stature and 
so deformed (and, incidentally, so inquisitive) that he was 
likened to an interrogation point. His legs were thin and 
well bandaged against the cold, and his body was padded 
at different places to keep it upright. At table he re- 
quired a high chair, like that of children, to bring him to 
the level of the other people. His features, delicate as if 
cut in ivory, were drawn and pinched, but his eyes were 
remarkable for their lustre and fire, and often for their 
tenderness. As he was also subject to constant moodiness, 
and sensitive to the least disturbance, outward or inward, 
his life became " one long disease, " that required incessant 
care and nursing. His ailments, his religion, — the Catho- 

l Alexander Pope was born in London, 1688. His father, who had be- 
come a convert to Catholicism, reared his children in the same faith. In 
his business as a linen draper, he realized a modest competence and 
retired to the country, within the borders of Windsor Forest, to enjoy it. 
There Pope spent his boyhood. On the death of his father, he removed 
to Twickenham, where he resided until his death in 1744. His chief 
works are : Pastorals, published in 1709 ; Essay on Criticism, 1711 ; Pollio, 
1712 ; Rape of the Lock, 1714 ; Homer's Iliad, 1715-18 ; Dunciad, first form, 
1728 ; Epistle to the Earl of Burlington, 1731 ; On the Use of Riches, 1732 ; 
Essay on Man, Part I., 1732 ; Horace, Sate 2. 1., imitated, 1733 ; Epistle to 
Lord Cobham, 1733 ; Epistle to Lord Arbuthnot, 1735 ; Horace, Epistle 1. 1., 
imitated, 1737 ; Dunciad, altered and enlarged, 1742. 



INTRODUCTION. V 

lie, then in disfavor, — and his astonishing precocity, kept 
him much in solitude, and fostered a passion for literature 
and for personal success which showed itself even in his 
childhood. Of himself, he says: "I lisped in numbers, 
for the numbers came.'" He was, in consequence, in- 
dulged, petted, praised, deferred to, and spoiled. Some 
of his temperamental defects ought to be ascribed to these 
physical ones. He was preposterously vain, peevish, and 
quarrelsome, with a venomous power to sting and cleverly 
insult his numerous cruel enemies that equals his unscru- 
pulousness and passion for mean intrigue. 

But there is another, and, perhaps, more representative, 
side to the man. In spite of his ill traits, he clung, at 
least outwardly, to his religion, was untiring in his pur- 
suit of letters, showed a tender love for his mother, and 
was often capable of sustained self-denial and devotion 
towards his friends, who were many and notable, including 
Arbuthnot, Gay, Prior, Addison, and especially Swift. 
Bolingbroke said of him, that he never knew a man who 
had so tender a heart fjor his particular friends ; and War- 
burton : " He is as good a companion as a poet, and, what 
is more, appears to be as good a man. 1 ' Now and then, 
as he philosophically contemplates his sufferings, a win- 
ning playfulness breaks through his general manner, and 
there is little doubt that a real tender-heartedness lay at 
the basis of his character. But, no matter what we may 
think of these seemingly juxtaposed characteristics of the 
man, one feeling overrides all others. < « The most abiding 



VI POPE'S ILIAD. 

sentiment — when we look at him as a literary phenom- 
enon — is admiration for the exquisite skill which enabled 
him to discharge a function, not of the highest kind, with 
a perfection rare in literature.'" (Stephen.) 

Yet this man, with his puny and sickly body, secluded 
habits, and a temper alternately mean and kindly to 
sentimentalism, has, by a strange paradox, translated the 
healthy, vigorous, wide-ranging, and heroic poetry of 
Homer. Of course, he could not give us Homer, but he 
did give us one of the best of English poems. 

The temper of his age. — The paradox is increased when 
we consider the age in which he lived, and whose best 
achievements in verse he represented. For Pope, like 
nearly every genius, was partly the product of the chief 
tendencies of his time and partly the creator of them. 
Scant justice will, therefore, be done his achievements, 
unless we realize the nature of the literary movements of 
the first half of the eighteenth century. The period which 
culminated in his verse and in the prose of Swift, Addison, 
and Fielding, was one of revolt against the absurd plots, 
strained fancies, and emotional extravagance of much of 
the literature of the preceding century. For lawlessness 
the eighteenth century writers aimed to substitute an 
orderly diction, probability in events, and truth to average 
human nature in character. Moreover, in the Elizabethan 
age, the whole range of character and passion, wholesome 
and morbid, seemed to have been finally expressed, and the 
appreciation for such things had long been sated. But 



INTRODUCTION. VU 

artistic activity, in spite of all that has been said about its 
utter exhaustion, was still keen, and irresistibly sought 
for something new and stimulating. 

In poetry. — This it found, for a time, as regards poetry, 
not in substance, but in method and style ; not in the 
things expressed so much as in the character of the ex- 
pression. But the revolt was in itself extreme. Imagina- 
tion was enslaved by a code of rules, and it consciously 
exemplified those rules rather than made good use of 
them. Daring imagery and passionate utterance and, 
indeed, enthusiasm of any kind, were rebuked as offences 
against taste and manners — for the age was the most 
artificial in its society and conventions ever known in 
England. A sober search for sober methods of composi- 
tion drove out the higher imaginative impulses . Aristotle^ 
precepts, or rather the dead precepts of French critics 
wrongly interpreting him, became authoritative, as did 
many other presumed devices of the ancient poets for 
attaining their presumed ends. The words calmness, 
reserve, order, arrangement, symmetry, proportion, etc., 
became catch-phrases; and deliberate imitation of the 
Greek, and especially the Latin poets, was more or less 
enjoined. Mediocre writers had, in consequence, a kind 
of critical receipt-book for making poetry, as a cook makes 
pies. The best poets, however, like Pope, Collins, Gray, 
and Thomson, were by no means as slavishly bound to 
these dead pseudo-classic prescriptions as it was once the 
custom to allege. Pope often violates them to give play 



Vlll POPE'S ILIAD. 

to somewhat romantic feelings and ideas ; and, in his criti- 
cal writings, he frequently qualifies the absoluteness of 
such formulas, notably when he questions their value for 
a supreme genius like Shakspere. In fact, it is hard to 
find more daring and convincing pleas for romanticism 
than were made by certain eighteenth century critics like 
George Farquhar and Leonard Welsted. 

In prose. — Thus even in the heart of the pseudo-classic 
period, there are signs of a life only momentarily chilled ; 
and it soon found its outlet, not in verse, but in a great 
creative prose literature, especially in the newly invented 
novel, where artificiality no more appears than in our 
present fiction. Though our chivalry, inspiration, and 
spirituality are unquestionably absent, their prose equals, 
and perhaps surpasses, ours in its effect of naturalness 
and reality, its robustness and practical insight into life. 

Because this tendency toward real things, in place of 
romantic things, embodied the best vitality of the early 
eighteenth century writers in prose, poetry fell into the 
second place, and became, for a while, enamored with 
technical devices. The ill effect of this upon verse is seen 
in the single fact that scarcely any poem of the time has 
the fused unity of creative art, but only the artificial unity 
of a schematic arrangement that could easily have been 
altered without much damage. 

Pope's literary characteristics. — It is, therefore, all the 
more creditable to Pope, that his actual works place him, 
not merely far at the head of the poets of his time, but 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

with, and perhaps above, the two or three most repre- 
sentative writers of the century. The chief qualities 
which won him this position are sensible thought, felici- 
tous illustration, a concise diction, an animated, but not 
flexible or full-volumed verse-music, and a certain real 
imaginative fervor when dealing with the sentiments of 
society and the more superficial emotions and virtues. 
His most marked failings are lack of sympathy for the 
beauty of nature, and for the most noble and intense 
feelings, the inability to develop plot or create sustained 
characters, and, with certain notable exceptions, the 
substitution of brilliant fancy for imagination, and of 
perfection of form for vitality in subject-matter. Above 
all other passions rose his desire to attain perfection of 
form, "a sense of the beauty of literary composition as 
such." As a boy, he took his life's lesson from " knowing 
Walsh," who used to tell him " there was one way left of 
excelling; for although we had several great poets, we 
never had any one great poet that was correct." By cor- 
rectness, Walsh meant a perfect and full suggestion of 
ideas by choice, terse, easily intelligible language. At 
this aim to present "what of t was thought, but ne'er so 
well expressed," Pope labored night and clay, and soon 
realized his instructor's advice. Nowhere is his power 
more evident than in his delineations of artificial social 
life, its transient manners and "modes" of feeling, and 
the actual men he found there. ' < When the poet engraves 
one of these figures, his compendious imagery, the sur- 



X POPE'S ILIAD. 

prises of his juxtaposition, the sustained and multiplied 
antitheses, the terse texture of each line, the incessant 
shock from the play of his eloquence directed and concen- 
trated continually upon one point, from these things the 
memory receives an impression which it never loses." 
(Taine.) 

In consequence of this gift of stimulating expression, 
Pope can fascinate us by clever execution, even when deal- 
ing with a dull and meaningless subject ; but, on the oth,er 
hand, we can never forget him, his cleverness, or his 
diction in the thing expressed, and oftentimes we are op- 
pressed by the forced effects, feverish brilliance, and gene- 
ral unrest of his style. All this is in absolute contrast to 
the clear, pure, calm style of Homer, where word and 
thought merge into one perfect effect, and which gives 
«' the single, defined, measured idea, as it is, and by itself . 
That which is chaste chastens ; there is a poised energy — 
a state half thrill, half tranquillity — which pure art gives, 
which no other can give ; a pleasure justified as well as 
felt ; an ennobled satisfaction at what ought to satisfy us, 
and must ennoble us." (Bagehot.) 

3. THE TRANSLATION. 

Such being the gifts of this extraordinary man, and 
such the spirit of his age, let us consider his good and ill 
success in rendering the chief characteristics of Homer. 

Homeric characteristics. — Certain qualities, found con- 
joined in no other poetry, make the Homeric style as 



INTRODUCTION. Xl 

unique as the Virgilian, Miltonic, D antes que, or Shak- 
sperean. Arnold mentions four of these qualities : " Homer 
is rapid in his movement ; Homer is eminently plain and 
direct, both in the evolution of his thought and in the ex- 
pression of it, that is, both in his syntax and words ; Ho- 
mer is eminently plain and direct in the substance of his 
thought; and, finally, Homer is eminently noble in his 
manner." Other Homeric characteristics will be consid- 
ered later [page xxviii] ; but these four — swift movement, 
plain thought, plain expression, and nobleness of manner 
— will afford ample tests with which to try Pope's trans- 
lation. 

1. Homers swiftness of movement. — " Homeric rapidity 
has two sources. The first and most essential is the quick 
movement of the poet's mind. His thoughts are direct ; 
they are ever darting onward ; and he does not retard 
their progress by details of a merely ornamental kind. 
< Sing, goddess, the wrath of Achilles, ' says Homer; and 
in his first verse he has announced his theme. . . . The 
other cause of Homeric rapidity is a joint result of lan- 
guage and meter. Greek has naturally a lighter and 
swifter movement than, for instance, Latin ; and the Greek 
hexameter, though its rhythm varies so much in different 
hands, is always lighter and more rapid than the Latin 
hexameter." (Jebb.) 

Pope^s movement. — Although Pope has also a certain 
rapidity of movement, it is not the smooth, subtly-varied 
swiftness of Homer, but a jogging and rather monotonous 



Xii POPE'S ILIAD. 

briskness. He impedes the progress of the action, even 
in his translation, by introducing reflective phrases, fanci- 
ful asides, and lingering appreciation of passages elabo- 
rated for their own sakes, to their detriment as humble 
parts of a swift narrative. His eye is not fixed clearly on 
the moving objects, but on the thoughts and feelings he lets 
them suggest. Thus, when Homer says simply: " the 
people were dying " from a plague sent by Apollo, Pope 
tells us : 

"Latona's son a dire contagion spread, 
And heaped the camp with mountains of the dead." 

This tendency is so strongly marked in every quotation 
given below from Pope that it needs no further illustration 
here. 

The English heroic couplet. — This difference in move- 
ment is quite as strongly indicated in the versification. 
For the long, smooth, richly-cadenced onward sweep of 
Homer, with changing pauses in which the verse music 
hovers and echoes itself, Pope substitutes a brisk forward 
tripping, with full and dead pauses at set intervals. The 
" solemn, ever- varied, resounding swell of the billow- 
like hexameter " is replaced by the English heroic couplet ; 
that is, a pair of rhyming ten-syllabled verses. Each 
couplet, by reason of the cesural and end pauses, the 
rhetorical balance of its parts, and the antithesis or con- 
sonance of its thoughts, tends to be a unit complete in 
itself ; and this separation from the body of a passage is 



INTRODUCTION, Xlll 

intensified by the rhyme. Melody such verse may have, 
but not harmony ; for harmony results from the fusion 
of multiple and varying parts ; and any long passage in 
heroic couplets breaks itself into separate bits, each much 
like the others. 

In the following line couplet : 

" True wit is nature to advantage dressed, 
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed," 

the two verses balance each other in sound and sense ; 
each verse is divided by its cesural pause into two juxta- 
posed parts ; the word " true" matches with << advantage 
dressed," as " wit " does with " nature " ; and << oft" con- 
trasts with " ne'er" and "thought" with "expressed." 
Such verse is rapid, clear, and to a degree, melodious ; it is 
compact and pointed ; it puts a page of meaning into two 
lines, and by choice phrases and calculated metrical devices 
makes a truism as vivid as if a new thing. In short, it is 
wonderful, but it is as unlike Homer as any thing good can be. 
Each verse of the couplet trips forward to its rhyming end 
word, like a partner in a simple " square " dance, and is 
followed by the other verse, like the second partner ; and 
the effect of the rhymes resembles that of the hand-clasp 
of the dancers. Or, to use another illustration not quite 
so fair to Pope, the full beat of each couplet is like the 
long swing, forwards and backwards, of a great pendulum, 
while a small clock is ticking off, staccato-like, minor 
intervals of time like those of metrical feet. The result is 



xiv POPE'S ILIAD. 

a kind of regulated see-saw rhythm, not music of full vol- 
ume flowing easily forward in changing cadences. Pope's 
music is (to press the point to unjust extremes) like the 
tap-tap of a drum, while Homer's has the long, smooth, 
resonant pulse and gradual sweep of a violin. 

Its tame emotional effect. — Another fundamental differ- 
ence between Pope's versification and that of Homer is 
based on the difference in emotional and musical effect 
between the written and the spoken word ; that is, between 
the abstract word apt to be used in writing, and the con- 
crete word apt to be used in daily talk. [Nearly every 
word of familiar speech, in addition to its direct expres- 
sion of an intellectual concept, has gathered round itself 
strong suggestions from real life. Such expressions, for 
instance, as home, brother, old, gentle, good, death, laughter, 
grumbling, drink and be merry, love one another, &c., 
have habitually and for ages been associated with the 
deeper emotions, the most important ideas, and the most 
vital deeds, and have taken an indefinite but potent color- 
ing from them. Even their sounds and rhythms, which 
are usually full and strong, as those of the intellectual 
words are sinuous and subtle, have been formed by the 
utterance of many generations of speakers, and our mem- 
ory surrounds them with an atmosphere suggestive of 
deeds and active living, like that it gathers about certain 
melodies that we have heard again and again in favorite 
places and with favorite friends. Images and emotions 
haunt such words, as they fly from bookish ones ; they 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

have a deeper and more sensuous meaning, as these 
have a wider and more abstract one. This halo, adum- 
bration, or undertone of the spoken word, hovers about 
and animates every phrase of Homer. To him, writ- 
ing, for literary purposes at least, was unknown. In 
fact, until the very end of the classic period of Greece, a 
strong protest was felt < < against the lifeless symbols of 
writing, the dead letter as opposed to the quickening and 
responsive energy of oral intercourse, where each sense 
and faculty — eye and ear and brain — are acting together 
in busy cooperation and rivalry, each eliciting, stimulating, 
and supplementing the other." (Butcher.)] 

Pope's diction is as distinctly a bookish and literary one, 
as Homer's is a natural and spoken one. 

Its lame musical effect. — One vital difference between 
the two styles — that in musical effect — can be easily veri- 
fied by reading a few verses of Pope and then a stanza 
from an old English ballad (Seepage xlix.). The first, 
like all intellectual and very literary verse, seems enunci- 
ated — pronounced with the lips — rather than uttered 
with the deep, full tones evoked from throat and chest by 
the ballad music, which sings itself strong and clear. 
Homer's verse, like that of Shakspere at its best, seems 
pitched somewhere between the labial utterance of literary 
poetry and the half chant of the ballads. It has, to use 
Horace's phrase, a " deep-mouthed music," and one that, 
disdaining Pope's careful regularity of metre, seems often 
to move by the sound- volume of each verse rather than by 



XVI POPE'S ILIAD. 

accurately syllabled divisions and precise feet. Respond- 
ing, as it were, to the music of the passions, it appears to 
set the stresses, pauses, and cadences, rather than to con- 
form to those set for it. In such poetry, " the rhythm of 
some modulating air seems to move them [the words] into 
their place without a struggle by the poet, and almost 
without his knowledge." 

No known verse equals Homer's in elasticity, variety, 
and the natural correspondence of sense to sound, or sur- 
passes it in exact adaptation of word to thought and in 
sustained musicalness. The English hexameter seems 
utterly incapable of making a near approach to the effects 
of the Greek. Hawtree's translation of the scene in which 
Helen, on the walls of Troy, looks on the plain below for 
her brothers, is as good as any we possess ; yet, beautiful 
as it is, it lacks Homer's strength and range, and his deep 
cadence and wave-like roll, and it softens his sentiment 
into an elegiac grace as it sweetens his verse. 

" Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia ; 
Known to me well are the faces of all; their names I re- 
member ; 
Two, two only remain, whom I see not among the commanders, 
Kastor fleet in the car, — Polydeukes brave with the cestus, — 
Own dear brethren of mine, — one parent loved us as infants. 
Are they not here in the host, from the shores of loved Lake- 

daimon, 
O, though they came with the rest in the ships that bound 

through. the waters, 



INTRODUCTION. xvii 

Dare they not enter the fight or stand in the council of Heroes, 

All for fear of the shame and the taunts my crime has awakened ? 

So said she; — they long since in Earth's soft arms were 

reposing, 

There in their own dear land, their Fatherland, Lakedaimon. ,, 

2. Homer's plainness of thought. — "Agamemnon says in 
Homer : l There will be a day when sacred Ilios shall perish.' 
How does the Elizabethan, Chapman, render this ? 

'And such a stormy day shall come, in mind, I know, 
When sacred Troy shall shed her towWs, for tears of over- 
throw.'' 

The addition of the epithet ' stormy ' to the word ' day ' 
might pass ; but the thing by which Chapman violates, plain- 
ness of thought, and is therefore un-Homeric, is in the idea of 
comparing Troy's towers, as they fall, to tears which Troy 
sheds at her own ruin. This is not a mere padding-out of the 
original ; it is a new thought, of which the original has nothing : 
and moreover it is a fantastic thought — a conceit." (Jebb.) 

Such phrases are as much of an anachronism to the spirit 
of the poem as the mention of Dutch cannon or a Spanish 
galleon would be historically. Pope, though he sins less 
than Chapman against the clear and natural thoughts of 
Homer, does so very often, especially in three ways : he 
obscures them, colors them picturesquely, and distorts 
them. 

a. Plainness of thought violated through Pope's obscurity. 
— He obscures Homer by introducing trite and irrelevant 
ideas, as appears in Ms translation of the opening lines of the 



T'TUl POPE'S ILIAD. 

Iliad: " Sing, goddess, the wrath of Achilles, Peleus' son, 
the ruinous wrath that wrought on the Achaians woes in- 
numerable, and hurled down to Hades many strong souls 
of heroes, and gave their bodies to be a prey to dogs and 
all winged fowl." In his first verse, Pope ornaments and 
elaborates a simple thought implied by Homer ; he calls 
Achilles 1 wrath the " spring" of disasters, and, worse than 
that, seems to play upon the various meanings of the 
word. In the second verse, he adds the needless adjective 
"heavenly," and calls the "Muse" "goddess." The 
third verse adds the epithet "gloomy," and impairs the 
visual image suggested by " Hades," by adding the ab- 
stract word ' ' reign " (realm) . The fourth verse ex- 
pands the Homeric phrase, " strong souls of heroes " into 
" mighty chiefs untimely slain." The fifth yerse changes 
and elaborates a graphic picture into trivialnes,^ ; " limbs" 
takes the place of body, and the words " unburied " and 
"naked "are gratuitous and woefully artificial. For the 
sixth verse, Pope has been praised for an accuracy and 
concreteness surpassing Homer's. " Vultures," it is said, 
is more definite than " all winged birds ; " and, moreover, 
every bird is not one of prey. But it is hard to believe 
that Homer meant more than that the bodies were there, a 
ready spoil for all birds that cared to prey upon them ; 
and, in any case, since other birds besides vultures do feed 
upon the dead, Homer's expression is as true as Pope's, 
and far more wide-reaching in import. Again (to say 
nothing of Pope's feeble reduplication of idea in the words 



INTRODUCTION. XIX 

" devouring " and "hungry,"), Homer, by the epithet 
<< winged," adds an idea of flight absent in Pope. Finally, 
concreteness is as often a fault as a virtue. It frequently 
suppresses the emotional value of words, and makes the 
style harsh and jarring in effect and strained in idea, as 
in the prose of Charles Reade and of Taine, or in the verse 
of Kipling and of Pope himself. 

Pope's rendering of the following passage from the 
eighth book, may well be kept in mind as typical of the 
extremes to which Pope sometimes carries his elaboration 
and ornament. 

* ' But these with high hopes sate them all night along the 
highways of the battle, and their watchfires burned in mul- 
titude. Even as when in heaven the stars about the bright 
moon shine clear to see, when the air is windless, and all 
the peaks appear and the tall headlands and glades, and 
from heaven breaketh open the infinite air, and all stars 
are' seen, and the shepherd's heart is glad ; even in like 
multitude between the ships and the streams of Xanthos 
appeared the Avatchfires that the Trojans kindled in front 
of Ilios. A thousand fires burned in the plain, and by 
the side of each sate fifty in the gleam of blazing fire. 
And the horses champed white barley and spelt, and 
standing by their chariots waited for the throned Dawn." 

This clear, swift description, full of natural beauty, 
Pope adapts, rather than translates, into a little master- 
piece of fancy, as marvellous as it is artificial in its studied 
effects : 



XX POPE'S ILIAD. 

" The troops exulting sate in order round, 
And beaming fires illumin'd all the ground, 
As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night ! 
O'er heav'n's clear azure spreads her sacred light, 
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene, 
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene ; 
Around her throne the vivid planets roll, 
And stars unnuinber'd gild the glowing pole, 
O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed, 
And tip with silver ev'ry mountain's head ; 
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise, 
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies : 
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight, 
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light. 
So many flames before proud Ilion blaze, 
And lighten glimm'ring Xanthus with their rays : 
The long reflections of the distant fires 
Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires. 
A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild, 
And shoot a shady lustre o'er the field. 
Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend, 
Whose umber' d arms by fits thick flashes send ; 
Loud neigh the coursers o'er their heaps of corn, 
And ardent warriors wait the rising morn." 

When Pope " prettifies " a simple, beautiful phrase like 
<< the bright morn, clear to see" by such words as " the 
moon, refulgent lamp of night," his eye is certainly not 
on the object he ought to be describing, but on the irrele- 
vant images from city life that object has somehow sug- 
gested, and on the balanced and orotund style he wants to 



INTRODUCTION. xxi 

employ. We do not view a scene of nature, but artificial 
pictures imagined in the presence of nature. 

b. Plainness of thought violated through Pope's pietur- 
esqueness, — The passage last quoted illustrates, also, 
Pope's fondness for coloring Homer's purity and clearness 
with picturesque effects. These are at times strong and 
impressive, like those of the Dutch painters ; but usually 
they are merely dainty, artificial, and unmeaning, except 
as ornament, like those of tinted porcelain. This ten- 
dency crops out in single phrases on almost every page of 
Pope's Iliad; he is constantly speaking of ''bright" ar- 
rows, "burning " and * < silver " shafts, < ' shining " thrones, 
"dusky" air, "sable fumes," " curling spires," "dismal" 
glarings, "purple" shores, etc. A striking instance ap- 
pears in the twentieth book of Pope's translation of the 
Odyssey, where rafters red with blood are spoken of as 
walls rubied round with sanguine drops. 

This line from the Iliad : 

" When multitudes fall dying before man-slaying Hector," 

is supposed to be translated by — 

" When flush? d with slaughter, Hector comes to spread 
The purpled shore with mountains of the dead." 

c. Pope also distorts the ideas and images of Homer by 
hyperbole. — The verses just quoted exemplify this. A 
like passage in the first book translates ' ' the topmost peak 
of many -ridged Olympus," by 



XXU POPE'S ILIAD. 

" Where old Olympus shrouds 
His hundred heads in heav'n and props the clouds." 

Then in line 52 of the same book, he interpolates a 
peculiarly modern idea in the text ; he calls Apollo — 

" The God who darts around the world his rays." 

3. Homer's plainness of expression iveakened by Pope. 
— Involved in this lack of plainness in thought is that of 
plainness in expression. 

" Sarpedon is exhorting Glaucus to fight against the 
Greeks : < I would not urge thee,' he says, < if men could 
live forever. But as it is, since ten thousand fates of 
death beset us always, — forward! Either we shall give 
glory to a foeman, or he to us.' 

Pope translates : — 

1 But since, alas ! ignoble age must come, 
Disease and death's inexorable doom, 
The life which others pay, let us bestow, 
And give to fame what we to nature owe.' 

The last two verses are an expansion of the one Greek 
word, fo/xej/, — ' forward! ' — and how the balanced rhetoric 
destroys its simple force.' 1 (Jebb.) 

Periphrasis and alliterative and onomatopoetic effects 
are common on every page. A single instance will suffice 
to illustrate all three devices. When Homer says that 
Apollo "let an arrow fly," Pope translates : " and hissing 
fly the feathered fates below." 



INTRODUCTION. xxiii 

There are no curious and evasive thoughts in Homer, 
but had there been, they could have been expressed sim- 
ply. An instance of a curious thought conveyed in a plain 
style is Lady Macbeth's scornful reply to her husband : 

" When you durst do it, then you were a man ; 
And to be more than what you were, you would be so 
much more the man." 

Again Homer's vigorous, dignified language, and espe- 
cially his image-making epithets, are refined away into 
feebly conventional or platitudinous expressions like 
" feathered race" for "birds," "watery tribe" for 
" fish," and " fleecy care " for " lambs." Pope's Messiah 
exemplifies this false taste at its worst. This poem, 
which is in part an adaptation of certain prophecies of 
Isaiah, reads like "a sickly paraphrase, in which all the 
majesty of the original is dissipated. . . . < The leopard,' 
says Isaiah, ' shall lie down with the kid, and the young 
lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead 
them ; ' Pope could not leave this exquisite picture under- 
rated, and with him, * boys in flowery bands, the tiger 
lead.'" (Mark Pattison.) 

But in spite of these drawbacks, Pope gives one com- 
pensation : he permits the reader to read swiftly. Even 
when his grammar and syntax are wrong, and his expres- 
sion is too concentrated, elliptical, and involved, his gene- 
ral meaning usually flashes out clear. If he does not give 
rapidly a full meaning, he does give readily an obvious 



XXIV POPE'S ILIAD. 

one, and in animated verse. In this respect, he is the best 
of translators. Finally, most of these and his other de- 
fects, when his poem is judged as a translation, become 
real merits when it is viewed as a literary epic of the 
eighteenth century. 

4. Homers nobleness of manner. — The fourth charac- 
teristic of Homer, nobleness of manner, or the grand style, 
is thus denned by Arnold : "It arises ... in poetry, when 
a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or 
severity a serious subject. " Milton and Wordsworth exem- 
plify adequately the grand style in its severity, as Homer 
does perfectly its simplicity. 

To use familiar words and simple thoughts, and yet, 
while avoiding a constrained manner, on the one hand, 
and a prosaic manner, on the other, to permeate both sub- 
stance and style with a lofty expressiveness, is a task that 
has baffled all translators of Homer. Pope violates both 
Homer's ease and his dignity many times on every page, 
usually in trying to elevate simple thoughts by expressing 
them in sounding or glittering rhetoric ; whereas Homer 
elevates his by the direct expressive use he makes of them 
when he is inspired by a noble intent. The end in him 
ennobles the means, and he never attracts our attention 
away from the end by undue emphasis upon the means. 
With the fewest possible words, and the greatest possible 
ease, and under the choicest circumstances, he expresses 
the highest conceptions, and never lets us admire him or 
his dexterous labors, when we should be delighted and up- 



IN TB OB UC TION. XXV 

lifted by his meaning. Pope's failure, and the failure of 
all other Homeric translators, is, in view of these things, 
not surprising ; a grand style is natural and sustained only 
in a grand character, though it is often achieved tempo- 
rarily by lesser writers in their grandest moments. A 
truly great man can make such simple and sincere use of 
every word and idea, even the plainest, as will inevitably 
suffuse them with his own highest qualities ; and the 
greater he is, and the more worthy he is of being admired 
for himself, the more he will make us forget himself, and 
live in the things he expresses. When deeply stirred, he 
will somehow put not only himself, but his best self, into 
the commonest words, as he does into the most trivial acts. 

" Whoever sweeps a room, as by God's laws, 
Makes that and the action fine." 

See how Lincoln, in his speech at Gettysburg in 1863, 
adopting ideas that stump-speakers had repeated feebly 
over and over, and words that nearly every petty journalist 
uses daily, made both ideas and words worthy of the heroic 
battle-field, by expressing through them heartfelt gratitude, 
aspiration, and high resolve. On a previous occasion, Lin- 
coln, by the same magic of a noble nature, transmuted 
strained and fanciful sentiments into deep, poetic utter- 
ance, and replaced a specious diction by homely words 
that touch our best emotions. Mr. Seward, his secretary 
of state, had suggested this passage as a fitting close for 
Lincoln's first inaugural address : 



XXvi POPE'S ILIAD. 

" I close. We are not, we must not be, aliens or enemies, 
but fellow-countrymen and brethren. Although passion has 
strained our bonds of affection too hardly, they must not, I am 
sure they will not, be broken. The mystic chords, which, pro- 
ceeding from so many battle-fields and so many patriot graves, 
pass through all the hearts and all hearths in this broad conti- 
nent of ours, will yet again harmonize in their ancient music 
when breathed upon by the guardian spirit of the nation." 

Lincoln carefully adapted the passage thus : 

" I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We 
must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it 
must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of 
memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave, 
to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, 
will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as 
surely they will be, by the better angels of our natures." 

This manner impossible to Pope. Such instances prove 
that a great style cannot be taught, any more than can a 
great character ; that such a style does not flow merely 
from the fingers, but that it is as mysterious as the life it 
expresses. We have only to turn to a description of 
Pope's personality, to realize that such a pitch of grandeur 
as Homer's was impossible to him, and that he must have 
been wonderfully talented to simulate so well something 
that passed among his contemporaries for Homer's vitality 
and nobleness. This much he was able to do, because his 
style had always a lively intellectual suggestiveness and 
artificial rhetorical dignity ; though seldom really noble, 



INTRODUCTION. XXVll 

it was never commonplace or ignoble. And, as we should 
expect from Pope's combativeness and power to hate, on 
the one hand, and his ready affectionateness on the other, 
we find that, in picturing debates or in describing certain 
obvious emotions, he often rises far above mere declama- 
tion and spurious feeling ; although he never, perhaps, 
attains true imaginative intensity and sincerity. The quar- 
rels of the Homeric heroes, their laments, and outbursts 
of sentiment, are, therefore, especially well presented. 
To do full justice to Pope's concentrated bitterness of feel- 
ing and, incidentally, to his subtle appreciation of eigh- 
teenth century manners, we should dwell upon his vivid, 
satiric portraits of some of his contemporaries, and upon 
his miniatures, bright as those seen from the wrong end of 
an opera-glass, of a be-wigged and be-powdered society, 
glorying in its gay lace coats, silk stockings, and red-heeled 
shoes, as well as in its decorous badinage. And the follow- 
ing exquisite passage from the Unfortunate Lady, shows 
how close an approach he can make to real pathos, without 
quite achieving it. in deepest sincerity : 

" By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd, 
By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd, 
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd, 
By strangers honor' d and by strangers mourn'd ! 
What tho' no friends in sable weeds appear, 
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year, 
And bear about the mockery of woe 
To midnight dances and the public show ? . . . 
Yet shall thy grave with rising flow'rs be drest, 
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast." 



xxviii POPE'S ILIAD. 

Provisional summary. Pope thus replaces Homer^s 
smooth swiftness by a jolting briskness ; his plainness of 
thought, by obviousness of general meaning ; his plainness 
of expression, by a concentrated and striking diction ; and 
his nobility of manner by a spirited, if artificial, one. 

Other Homeric features in Pope's translation. The 
effect of Pope's translation is heightened by other Homeric 
elements : the main outline of the story of the Iliad, the 
chief traits of its characters, and a general suggestion of 
its ideal subject-matter. Since Pope could not invent a 
natural plot, or create animated character, or think or feel 
profoundly, he appears to great advantage in his Iliad, 
where all the elements that he lacked are furnished him. 

Additions characteristic of Pope. To the adaptation 
of the general substance of Homer to his own use, and 
to the substitution of certain qualities of his own style 
for corresponding ones of Homer, Pope adds many other 
of his rare qualities, — his delightful wit, sparkling fancy, 
incisive epigram, pleasing balance of both sense and 
sound, and certain technical devices in verse in which he 
has never been surpassed. 

Final estimate. The result, taken just as it stands, 
apart from all reference to Homer, is one of the best 
poems in the English language. The opinion of Bentley, 
the great classical scholar, who was contemporary with 
Pope, still remains the truest ever given : "A pretty poem, 
Mr. Pope, but not Homer." If, by "a pretty poem," 
Bentley meant a literary epic of superb ingenuity, bril- 



INTRODUCTION. XXIX 

liant fancy, brisk movement, and pleasing sentiment, he 
is more just than most subsequent critics ; for he realized 
that Pope's Iliad is virtually not a translation, but a new 
thing, to be judged by its own standards. Pope, like Chap- 
man, has retold in his own manner and in that of his age 
the story of Achilles and of Troy. 

Returning to our illustration of the actor, we may say 
that Pope, in assaying the character of Homer, has ren- 
dered another and far different one. He has caught a very 
specious likeness to the original, and added splendid, if 
artificial, qualities of his own. The result is not a Homer 
in the high-heeled shoes, laced velvet coat, and flowing 
periwig of the eighteenth century, as has crudely been said, 
but a new being so unlike Homer as to suggest little re- 
semblance. This character, though immeasurably inferior 
to Homer, is always true to itself, and always animated. 
Its very manners, however artificial, are a part of it, just 
as a society man's have become an instinctive part of him. 
The actor has signally failed to impersonate Homer ; but 
he has given us a conception, which, though astonishingly 
untrue, is yet fascinating and living. 

II. HOMER'S ILIAD. 

INTRODUCTION. 

Centuries before the year 1000 B.C., when Egypt had 
already begun to decline, a vigorous Aryan people invaded 
Greece, and conquered the half-barbaric peoples already 



XXX POPE'S ILIAD. 

there. The invaders, who had no common racial name, 
but called themselves Achaeans, Argives, or Danaans, 
after their principal tribes or settlements, were in their 
turn subdued by a race of kindred blood, the Dorians ; 
but not until long after these tribes had developed a civil- 
ization that, in spite of its primitiveness, gave birth to our 
best two epic poems — the Iliad and Odyssey. 

Definition of epic poetry. An epic poem is (1) a nar- 
rative of considerable length, which has (2) an elaborate 
plot, and expresses (3) a grand, stirring theme (4) in a 
peculiarly dignified verse, called heroic verse. This defi- 
nition includes such poems as the JEneid of Yirgil, the 
Divine Comedy of Dante, and the Paradise Lost of Milton. 
[But these last are now called Literary Epics in contradis- 
tinction to poems like the Iliad and Odyssey, which are 
called Natural Epics. The difference between the two 
kinds has been well stated by Professors Kittredge and 
Greenough. 

44 Properly speaking ... an epic consists of a body of im- 
memorial tradition which has taken form in the minds and 
language of a people ; and which, while the traditions were 
yet living and believed in, has been worked up in a single 
poem, or group of poems, whose antiquity and national char- 
acter have made them, in some sense, sacred books. This is 
what the poems of Homer were to the Greeks, the Mahabha- 
rata and Ramayana to the Hindoos, and the Niebelungen to 
the Germans. Such epics usually contain some element of the 
supernatural. The gods may intervene to thwart or assist 



INTRODUCTION. XXXI 

the hero, or may otherwise take a share or manifest an interest 
in the action. Such divine actors are technically called the 
machines (or, collectively, the machinery) of the poem. . . . 
The j^Eneid is an epic in a very different sense. . . . Though 
it has the foundation of traditions and all the divine machinery 
of the true epic, yet the traditions are no longer living ; the 
divine machinery is no longer a matter of belief. The tradi- 
tions are dug up by antiquarian research. The machinery is 
manufactured, as it were, in a modern workshop. Many of 
the incidents are labored invention, while the whole is written 
with a definite purpose as a work of art." 

That is, in the natural epic, myths of a religious char- 
acter, and heroic tales accepted as more or less true by 
ages of tradition, seem to have been the raw material for 
the poet or poets to draw upon. 

The natural epic has, in consequence, a spontaneity and 
life-likeness impossible to the invented plot and adopted 
myths of the literary epic] 

The Homeric question. How far the Iliad and Odyssey 
are based on such traditional material, and how far they are 
the works of conscious art, is now a fiercely debated ques- 
tion. Until the end of the seventeenth century, however, 
few critics had seriously doubted that a poet named Homer 
had once lived, and had really composed the poems attrib- 
uted to him. Pope, for instance, speaks of Homer as the 
author of the Iliad with quite as much assurance as we do 
of Shakspere as the author of Lear. But by the begin- 
ning oi the present century, a great change in opinion had 



xxxii POPE'S ILIAD. 

taken place. Was there a Homer? Did one author, or 
many authors, compose the Iliad and Odyssey? Or was 
each poem wholly a folk-epic, gradually composed through 
centuries of time, and handed down from generation to 
generation by oral tradition ? Had the Iliad an organic 
unity, or was it merely a loose compilation of many le- 
gends, romances, or ballads, relating to a real or supposed 
Trojan war? These and many similar questions were, 
and still are, discussed with so much violence, that Mr. 
Perry says the Trojan war is not yet ended. 

Value of its literary results. As our task is not to 
inquire by whom or how the Iliad was composed, but to 
learn what that epic, taken just as it stands, expresses for 
us as a work of the imagination, we shall have little to do 
with the battle of the critics. Nevertheless, the contro- 
versy, though still undecided in many features, has con- 
firmed certain views which are very helpful to our direct 
literary appreciation. These are, first, that the composer 
or composers of the Iliad worked with a singularly power- 
ful and unifying imagination; second, that the style of 
such composer or composers is in some qualities (though 
by no means in all) like that of our best old traditional 
ballads, especially the heroic ballads; and third, that the 
emotions expressed are of a peculiarly direct and impas- 
sioned kind. 



INTRODUCTION. xxxiii 



I. UNITY OF THE SUBJECT MATTER OF* THE ILIAD. 

To the unity of the main plot in the Iliad — the plot 
outlined in the following admirable summary — little ob- 
jection has ever been made. The parts not only cohere, 
but are indispensable to each other; the whole is well 
proportioned, and the action moves forward swiftly — 
perhaps too swiftly. 

<< A hero (Achilles) injured by his general (Agamem- 
non) , and animated with a noble resentment, retires to his 
tent, and for a season withdraws himself and his troops 
from the war. During this interval victory abandons the 
army which for nine years has been occupied in a great 
enterprise, upon the successful termination of which the 
honor of their country depends. The general, at length 
opening his eyes to the fault which he had committed, 
deputes the principal officers of his army to the incensed 
hero, with commission to make compensation for the 
injury, and to tender magnificent presents. The hero, 
according to the proud obstinacy of his character, per- 
sists in his animosity; the army is again defeated, and is 
on the verge of entire destruction. This inexorable man 
has a friend; this friend weeps before him, and asks for 
the hero's arms, and for permission to go to the war in 
his stead. . The eloquence of friendship prevails more 
than the intercession of the ambassadors or the gifts of the 
general. He lends his armor to his friend, but commands 
him not to engage with the chief of the enemy's army, 



XXXIV POPE'S ILIAD. 

because he reserves to himself the honor of that combat, 
and because he also fears for his friend's life. The pro- 
hibition is forgotten ; the friend listens to nothing but his 
courage ; his corpse is brought back to the hero, and the 
hero's arms become the prize of the conqueror. Then 
the hero, given up to the most lively despair, prepares to 
fight ; he receives from a divinity new armor ; is recon- 
ciled with his general ; and, thirsting for glory and re- 
venge, enacts prodigies of valor; recovers the victory; 
slays the enemy's chief; honors his friend with superb 
funeral rites ; and exercises a cruel vengeance on the body 
of his destroyer ; but finally, appeased by the tears and 
prayers of the father of the slain warrior, restores to the 
old man the corpse of his son, which he buries with 
due solemnities. ,, — Coleridge's Adaptation of Bitaube's 
Summary . 

1. The episodes. Between the time of the withdrawal 
of Achilles and of the embassy to him, and again between 
the time of the embassy and of Patroclus's death, certain 
episodes, or incidental narratives, intervene, which appar- 
ently glorify other heroes than the chief one. These 
episodes, many writers contend, interrupt and mar the 
main story. The substance of the whole story, episodes and 
all, has been concisely stated by Professor Jebb (seep. 129). 

The reply to the objection against the episodes is three- 
fold : first, the plot demands most of them ; second, they 
give a needed variety to the poem ; and third, they add to 
the massiveness of its general effect 



IN TR OB UC TION. XXXV 

The episodes complete the plot. To give occasion for 
the embassy and for Achilles' reappearance on the field, 
the poem has to reveal the Achaean army twice in deep 
distress. In the episodes, the Achaean chiefs, one by one, 
or by groups, in a sort of grand pageant of war, show 
superhuman valor and perform superhuman deeds, but all 
without avail. The Trojans gradually beat them back, 
until at last they are forced to take refuge behind their 
ships at the very margin of the sea. Again and again, 
sometimes in the bitter complaints of the chiefs them- 
selves, the sullen withdrawal of Achilles is held to be the 
cause of these gathering disasters. 

This kind of unity often appears in matter-of-fact works. 
Thus in Messrs. Mcolay and Hay's Abraham Lincoln: a 
History, many whole chapters scarcely mention Lincoln's 
name, but deal with persons and events relating to him 
only indirectly, though necessary to our knowledge of his 
age, and to his effect on that age. But if at intervals we 
lose sight of the gaunt figure and the grave, honest, kindly 
face, we can never forget them ; we feel Lincoln's impor- 
tance through his very absence, as we might that of a 
great statesman who should temporarily leave a room 
crowded with anxious public men, to decide alone some 
critical national question. 

In a similar manner, the Iliad nearly always keeps us 
aware of Achilles through the results of his withdrawal. 
No matter how rounded and complete each episode may 
appear, and no matter how marvellous the exploits of 



XXXVI POPE'S ILIAD. 

Diomed, Ajax, Ulysses, or Agamemnon may be, the 
reader is made to realize that had Achilles been in the 
field, the issue would have been far more decisively in 
favor of the Achaeans. When at last, just after a short 
and ominous lull in the war, he reappears, shouting at the 
dike or blazing in full panoply along the ris^er-plain, 
much of the sublime effect is due to the contrast between 
his success and the ruinous failure of the others. His 
splendid career of victory is set in strong relief by their 
disasters. 

The episodes add variety and massiveness of effect. 
Moreover, had the Iliad dealt only with the fortunes of 
Achilles, the story would have been too direct, monoto- 
nous, and bald; it would have lacked the intense interest 
aroused by contrasted and varied scenes and by dramatic 
suspense. As it is, we feel all the grim vastness of the 
war, its tumultuousness, its desperate struggle and strain, 
and the alternating exultation and despair of both armies. 
Even Books VI. and X., which are incorporated with the 
main action perhaps less successfully than the others, can 
hardly be dispensed with ; they carry us within the lines 
of the enemy, and reveal the effect of the war there, — 
the effect not so much upon a whole people, as upon the 
personal fate of single heroes and upon that of their wives 
and children. Without such episodes the Iliad would lack 
its scenes of tenderest feeling. It has been well said of 
the minor writers of fiction that the fortunes of their 
heroes do not materially affect any one but themselves ; 



INTRODUCTION. XXX vii 

whereas the fortunes, for instance, of Scott's heroes involve 
those of a whole class, party, or nation. In a manner 
superior even to Scott's, the Homeric episodes enlarge 
the theatre of Achilles' action. His character thereby 
becomes so momentous as to seem almost colossal ; his 
every deed affects both his own fate and the fates of two 
peoples. Hence the epic is rightly named the Iliad — 
poem about Ilium, — and not the Achilliad, — poem about 
Achilles. 

2. The character of Achilles : its ideality. The essen- 
tial characteristic of the hero whose personality dominates 
nearly all parts of the Iliad is ideality. 

His outward form is ideal, — intensely suggestive of 
physical power and beauty. Throughout the poem, the 
epithets " golden-haired," " fleet-footed," " mighty," and 
" noble" are applied to him, not exclusively, but with 
peculiar appositeness and frequency. He is unquestion- 
ably the fleetest, bravest, and best warrior in the allied 
forces. As his warlike equipment must be in keeping 
with his character, and express that character, his troops, 
the Myrmidons, are the most fierce and daring in the 
army; his chariot-horses, Xanthos and Balios, are im- 
mortal ; and his very arms, made by the god Hephaestos, 
transcend those of other heroes in efficacy and splendor. 
When Patroclus donned his comrade's armor to go forth 
to battle, " he took not the spear of the noble son of 
Aiakos (Achilles) , heavy and huge and stalwart, that none 
other of the Achaians could wield, but Achilles alone 



xxxviii POPE'S ILIAD. 

availed to wield it." Clad in these arms, Achilles con- 
fronts Hector ; he 

" Was fierce and mighty, his shield cast a sunlike radiance, 
Helm nodded, and his four plumes shook, and when he 

raised his lance, 
Up Hesperos rose among the evening stars." 

Chapman. 

But his prowess is independent of arms. Tennyson's 
graphic, though somewhat over-picturesque translation of 
" Achilles over the Trench," shows how the unspeakably 
beautiful and the terrific coalesce in the Homeric hero. The 
dead body of Patroclus, Achilles' dearest friend, is being 
dragged to the Trojan lines to be dishonored ; the Achae- 
ans, exhausted and despairing, are giving way, when 
Achilles, unarmed, appears upon the trench. He shouts ; 
and as he shouts, Pallas flashes a nimbus of golden fire 
around his head. 

" And when the brazen cry of iEakides 
Was heard among the Trojans, all their hearts 
Were troubled, and the full-maned horses whirl'd 
The chariots backward, knowing griefs at hand; 
And sheer-astounded, were the charioteers 
To see the dread, unweariable fire 
That always o'er the great Peleion's head 
Burn'd, for the bright-eyed goddess made it burn. 
Thrice from the dyke he sent his mighty shout, 
Thrice backward reel'd the Trojans and allies ; 
And there and then twelve of their noblest died 
Among their spears and chariots." 



INTRODUCTION. XXXix 

His temperament rivals his physical traits. He is a 
man of profound though not uncontrolled passions. So 
terrific and tragic, and yet so open and noble, is his 
wrath that it is made the heroic theme of the poem. 
Notable, and in the main just, as his anger is, it fades 
before the spell of his love for a dead comrade. That 
love causes him to be reconciled with his bitterest enemy, 
to sacrifice his own life, and to become for a brief time 
the most inexorably stern figure in literature. Then at 
the very end, the fierceness and excess of his avenging 
love is tempered by the still nobler emotion of compas- 
sion for an aged king — the father of the foe who slew 
Patroclus. Though hard-won, Achilles ' victory over him- 
self and over the violence of even his better passions is at 
last complete ; and < « there is a noble contrast between the 
strain" put upon him in this spiritual struggle, " and the 
masterful ease with which he prostrates every enemy. " 

His moral courage. He has more than the brilliancy of 
the warrior ; more, too, than tempestuous passions ; he is 
also an intrepid champion of the public good, with a burn- 
ing zeal against high-handed oppression, chivalrous com- 
passion, and such an absolute obedience to the gods that 
he conquers his fiercest impulses, even when he mistrusts 
his own power to check them. (Adapted from Jebb.) 
His fortitude in assuming the whole responsibility of the 
allies' complaint against Agamemnon, and his quick re- 
sponse to Athena's command to control himself, are, taken 
together, typical instances of all these traits, but especially 



xl POPE'S ILIAD. 

of- his submission to duty and the gods. Truth he reveres 
in the same intense way: "Hateful to me even as the 
gates of Hell," he says, " is he that hideth one thing in his 
heart and uttereth another." Eespect for his oath will not 
permit him to succor the Achaean army in its peril. His 
reply to the pleading Patroclus is, << No man may be angry 
of heart forever, yet truly I said I would not cease from 
mine oath until to mine own ships should come the war-cry 
and the battle. " But he does all that he can do, and yet 
keep his oath inviolate. Though he must not venture forth 
himself, he sends his war-loving Myrmidons under the 
leadership of his fated comrade. 

His social graces round and perfect the strong main 
outlines of his character. He is, for instance, a lover of 
music and of the arts of peace, and «< a speaker of words " 
as well as < * a doer of deeds." In his oratory are combined 
"the most fiery passion," "the keenest sarcasm," , and 
* < the utmost force of argument." ( Jebb.) * * I cannot think 
Achilles," says Gladstone, " in any way inferior to Demos- 
thenes." Finally, his courtesy is gentle, tactful, sincere, 
notably to Priam and to Phoenix and the other members 
of the embassy from Agamemnon. When one of them, 
Ajax, churlishly calls him stubborn, manslaying, merci- 
less, Achilles replies with a superb sweetness and dignity. 

His friends, etc. So far we have had an ideal picture 
of the man by his appearance, dress, words, and acts. 
But, with supreme art, the Iliad ennobles his character in 
another and surer way : by the kind of parents and friends 



INTRODUCTION. xli 

he has, and by the regard in which others — even the gods 
— hold him. No man has a better mother, better com- 
rades, or inspires or gives so great an affection. 

Again, his tragic situation, and his sad but resolute ac- 
ceptance of it, idealize him. " From the first we breathe 
the fresh, dark air of tragic passion and presage ; and to 
the last the changing wind and flying sunlight are in keep- 
ing with the stormy promise of the dawn. 1 ' (Swinburne.) 

Achilles' early death is the burden of the Iliad. From 
his mother he had learned that he could choose between 
two fates, — between a long life without fame, and a swift- 
coming but glorious death. The spirit of his choice is 
summed up in one line : 

" When I am dead, I shall lie low; let me now win high 
renown." 

Yet again and again, and especially in the great scene 
when Priam comes to his tent at night, < « he rises above 
[mere] . . . personal sorrow to the height of human pity, 
and draws a picture, never yet surpassed, of human des- 
tiny ; of the < lot the gods have spun for miserable men. n, 
(S. H. Butcher.) Not only does his fate, swift, sure, and 
tragic, result from his own acts of self-sacrifice, but his 
bearing, particularly at the last, is so kindly, dignified, and 
noble, that our sympathy, imbued with awe, goes out to 
him in full tide. He is worthy of the famous simile iEs- 
chylus applies to him — an eagle stricken to death by an 
arrow fledged with his own feather. • 



xlii POPE'S ILIAD. 

Summary. Achilles' character thus appears as a con- 
summate fusion of all those elements the Achaeans believed 
most perfect. He is also the outcome of the Greek instinct 
for proportion and measure. Even his melancholy results, 
like that of the later Greeks, from a manly recognition of 
the limits set to human effort and the human lot. That 
his many-sided character, grand and intense in all its man- 
ifestations, is not perfect, is due to the fact that he is 
mortal (though even the gods had defects), and to the 
faults m the Greek ideal. His violence and excess were 
regarded less in their true nature, than as mighty forces 
under strong control. Indeed, his self-command seems 
marvellous even to us ; " though always in danger it is 
never lost." Much as his occasional ferocity shocks and 
hurts us, we feel that it could have been checked had 
Achilles thought it wrong, instead of believing it more 
than just — exacted by his duty to the dead. Whatever 
his acts are, his animating motives seem to be the result 
of his sense of right; or, at least, of his overmastering 
love ; and, at his worst, he reminds us rather of the bar- 
barous, but stalwart and wholesome Teutons of a later 
time, than of the civilized but decadent peoples they 
conquered. 

When his friend perishes, we see Achilles — 

"rise in his noontide wrath, before which no life could stand. 
The frenzy of his grief makes him for a time cruel and im- 
placable. He sweeps the field of battle like a monsoon. His 
revenge descends perfect, sudden, like a curse from heaven. 



INTRODUCTION. xliii 

We now recognize the goddess-born. This is his avatar — the 
incarnate descent o£ his wrath. Had he moved to battle under 
the ordinary impulses of Ajax, Diomed, and the other heroes, 
we never could have sympathized or gone along with so with- 
ering a course. We should have viewed him as c a scourge of 
God,' or fiend, born for the tears of wives and the maledictions 
of mothers. But the poet, before he would let him loose upon 
men, creates for him a sufficient, or at least palliating, motive. 
In the sternest of his acts we read only the anguish of his 
grief. This is surely the perfection of art." — DeQuincey. 

" In Achilles, Homer summed up and fixed forever the ideal 
of the Greek character; He presented an imperishable picture 
of their national youthfulness, and of their ardent genius to the 
Greeks. The ' beautiful human heroism ' of Achilles, his strong 
personality, his fierce passions controlled and tempered by 
divine wisdom, his intense friendship, and love that passed the 
love of women, above all, the splendor of his youthful life in 
death made perfect, hovered like a dream above the imagi- 
nation of the Greeks, and insensibly determined their later 
development." — Symonds. 

II. UNITY OF STYLE. 

Characteristics of Homer 's style. Quite as remarkable 
as the unity of plot is the unity of style, shown especially 
in the continuous presence of the four characteristics des- 
ignated by Arnold : swift movement, plain thought, plain 
expression, and nobleness of manner (see page xi.). 
Arnold does not, however, indicate sufficiently two other 
characteristics of Homer, partly implied, perhaps, in these 



xliv POPE'S ILIAD. 

four : the dramatic power and the sensuousness of Hornets 
style. 

1. Dramatic power. Homer's movement is more than 
swift: it is also dramatic, revealing character and plot 
through natural incident. The story is advanced by a 
progressive series of scenes, in which the chief personages 
speak and act in a way so characteristic of themselves as 
indirectly to reveal their own natures. Since, moreover, 
each scene is grouped with a simple sculpturesque dignity, 
and develops, swiftly and directly, some dramatic * mo- 
ment' of the story, the appeal to our visual imagination 
and sympathies is at times so strong, that the incidents 
hardly appear to be narrated at all, but to be really 
enacted as in an actual drama. Of such scenes the first 
book is full. 

2. Homer' 's sensuousness. A kindred element in the Ho- 
meric style is the peculiar charm it exercises over the 
senses. Though the final appeal is to the mind, it is 
through delight of the eye and the ear. To the imagina- 
tion, the Homeric scenes appear almost as life-like as those 
of nature, but are more impressive, more clear-cut, and 
have an added lightness, brightness, or radiance. If, in 
most poetry — especially romantic poetry — the scenes ap- 
pear to be bathed in a splendor not their own (as though 
they or their spectator were under a kind of enchantment) , 
this is hardly true of Homeric poetry ; there the delight- 
giving elements seem to belong to the scenes themselves, 
as their natural and abiding characteristics. No other 



INTRODUCTION. xlv 

poetry, in consequence, except folk-poetry, is so natural 
and objective in its pictures — that is, with the appearance 
of existing in the outer world. 

Homer's impersonalism. This effect is due in part to 
the poet's suppression of himself. "The harmonious 
laws of his mind," says Gladstone, "are everywhere vis- 
ibly at work, but the ego — the mere personality — is 
nowhere to be traced." Imagine a house so well built 
that it made the spectator call it a substantial, commodious, 
beautiful dwelling, without suggesting one thought about 
the architect or his whims and mannerisms — the Iliad is 
like that house, and its author was like the architect. 

[Lack of figurativeness . Moreover, Homeric scenes, 
like those of the best ballads, hardly appear to be figura- 
tive ; that is, expressive of something over and above them- 
selves as real outward scenes. Because of their direct 
life-likeness, they seem "really real," not fictitious; and 
impress us to some degree as do momentous scenes of his- 
tory, like the Defence of Thermopylae or the defeat of the 
Spanish Armada. No wonder, then, that the later Greeks 
regarded the Homeric poems as more or less authentic 
history. 

This figurativeness must be carefully distinguished from 
impersonalism, or self-suppression. The following pas- 
sage from Dante's Inferno will show that a poet, though 
wholly impersonal, may yet be strongly figurative : 

« ' And the loathsome image of fraud came onward, and 
landed his head and his body, but drew not his tail upon 



xlvi POPE'S ILIAD. 

the bank. His face was the face of a just man (so be- 
nignant, was its skin outwardly), and of a serpent all the 
trunk beside ; he had two paws, hairy to the armpits ; his 
back and breast and both his sides were painted with 
nooses and circles. ... As sometimes boats lie on the 
shore so that they are partly in water and partly on the 
ground ... so lay that worst of beasts upon the rim 
that closes in the sand with stone. In the void all his tail 
was quivering, twisting upwards its venomous fork, which, 
like a scorpion's, armed the point.'" (Norton's translation.) 

Through this description of Geryon, an abstract or sym- 
bolic meaning, somewhat like that which underlies an 
allegory, is almost as manifest as the character himself ; he 
is, as Dante says, a " type or image of Fraud" as well as 
Geryon. 

The impression Homer gives of first-hand, external 
reality is stronger than this. Like Dante, he does not ob- 
trude himself as an interpreter of his scenes ; unlike Dante, 
he does not let even his scenes appear to be interpretations, 
but makes us find significances in them for ourselves, as 
when we realize that a friend, whom we care for simply 
for his own sake, is also a type of honor or courage. Such 
scenes do not take on a figurative meaning — do not seem 
typical — until we think twice, and then the typicalness 
seems more of a consequence than a first impression. 
Even the Homeric grotesques do not seem to be, at least 
at a first glance, personifications of any kind. They ap- 
pear to be < just themselves ' ; that is, as solidly objective 



INTRODUCTION. xlvii 

in their grand way as dwarfs, giants, clowns, and elephants 
are, in a small way, to children ; or as the horse was to 
the Polynesians when, years ago, they called it a < big 
pig,' and were half -scared, half-delighted by its ' funni- 
ness.' They are primarily matter-of-fact monsters, seen 
* out yonder ' in the white light of every day, as though 
"Something like apes that mow and chatter," were re- 
vealed to us on a colossal scale, as they roam about in a 
planetary forest. 

All this does not mean that the Homeric scenes and 
characters are not typical (they are as profoundly so as 
Dante's) , but simply that the expression of the typicalness 
is indirect, perhaps unconscious. We are interested in 
them first and foremost because they seem to be real ob- 
jects and real persons. Though not at once apparent, 
however, our perception that universal types are imaged 
in individual things, comes as inevitably as it does when 
we reflect upon the most characteristic men and things of 
actual life. 

The objective reality of Homer's world is also increased 
by the remarkable absence of all abstract, speculative, or 
metaphysical ideas. Even subjective imagery, or imagery 
founded on sensation and thought, is rare, and of the 
simplest and most familiar kind — from dreams, the quick- 
ness of thinking, and the like.] 

Homeric epithets. So thorough is the Homeric appeal to 
the eye, that nearly every verse, and, indeed, nearly every 
phrase, tends to present to the imagination an emotion- 



xlviii POPE'S ILIAD. 

stirring picture. So vivid is this appeal, even in the epi- 
thets, that Gladstone says, they " stand in place of descrip- 
tion." Such phrases as " man-slaying hands," " unfruitful 
sea," and " wide-streeted city," are as full of visual imagi- 
nation as these from the old English ballads, — "ship 
that sails the sea," "white banes when they are bare," 
" were-wolf in the wood." Their cut-and- thrust direct- 
ness, and naturalness of effect, are far greater than they 
are in the figurative language of similes and metaphors. 

Sustained similes. Even the sustained similes of Homer 
surpass those of all other poetry in directness of imagery. 
They are very simple, being rather sustained descriptions 
or pictures, with one passing flash of likeness to something 
else, than true sustained similes. "When Homer com- 
pares A to B, he will often add details concerning B which 
have no bearing on the comparison. For instance, when 
the sea-god, Poseidon, soars into the air, — he is compared 
to a hawk, — 

* That from a beetling brow of rock 
Launched in mid-air forth dashes to pursue 
Some lesser bird along the plain below. ' 

but Poseidon is not pursuing any one ; the point of simili- 
tude is solely in the speed through the air." — Jebb. 

Auditory effect of verse. Merged or fused with this 
appeal to the eye is the appeal to the ear through the 
varied and vital cadences of the Homeric verse, whereby 
sense and sound seem one. But on this point see page xv. 



INTRODUCTION. xlix 

All these qualities make the highly ideal in the Iliad 
appeal to us with a convincing natural effect. The style 
of the poem is a medium of revelation as pellucid and un- 
noticed by us as is the clear glass of a window opening 
upon a fascinating scene. With practically no subjective 
shading, or coloring, or romantic dream-atmosphere (as 
even the Odyssey has) , the heroic scenes of the Iliad stand 
out sharp and full, much as real things do in clear sunshine. 
The glamor and the glory of such scenes do not seem to 
result from enchantment, or from our peculiar mood or 
point of view, but to be part of the outward facts, and 
therefore capable of being perceived by any normal, wide- 
awake man. 

Homeric style and the ballad style. So much has been 
said in recent years of the likeness and unlikeness between 
the style of Homer and that of the very best old traditional 
ballads, that it will be well to sum up here the results of 
that discussion, though we must never forget this funda- 
mental distinction, that the Iliad and Odyssey are com- 
plete epics, whereas the ballads are only isolated short 
poems. The ballad style, like the Homeric, has swiftness 
of movement, plainness of ideas, plainness of expression, 
dramatic vigor, and sensuous objectivity ; but is less flexi- 
ble in versification, less varied both in thought and in 
feeling, less mature and more emotional in the conception 
of life it expresses, and hence, less noble in its manner. 
.Nobility of manner, however, though more crude than in 
Homer, is nevertheless present, and resembles that of 



1 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Homer, as a boy's ideals resemble those of his manhood. 
No matter how superior any passage from the Iliad may 
be to a ballad like Sir Patrick Spence, in range of ideas 
and emotions, in delicacy of insight, and in natural grace 
and modulation of verse-music, it is impossible for any 
poetry to surpass its half -epic, half -dramatic swiftness, or 
its simplicity and sensuous vividness, or a certain childlike 
nobility that is of its very essence. The ballad style, then, 
although it has many qualities similar to those of the 
Homeric style, is much more primitive, both in form and 
in substance. 

III. THE EMOTIONS OF THE ILIAD. 

Our realization of the vitality of the Homeric style is 
increased when we appreciate the nature of the emotions 
expressed by the poem. [These emotions are not, like those 
of most of our novels, either of sentiment or sentimentality. 
" Sentiment," says Lowell, "is intellectualized emotion; 
emotion precipitated, as it were, in pretty crystals of fancy 
— emotion ripened by a slow ferment of the mind. . . . 
But the sentimentalist insists on taking his emotions neat." 
That is, the man of sentiment both weakens and refines 
his emotions by suffusing them with fancies and thoughts ; 
and the sentimentalist has a keen enjoyment of the facti- 
tious excess of his emotions. Obviously, the emotions 
expressed in the Iliad are too strong and natural in 
character to be thus defined; they are more like those 
expressed in the ballads spoken of above, which are so sur- 



INTRODUCTION. li 

charged with natural feeling as almost to drown thought, 
and become laws unto themselves. Not that the ballad- 
emotions are irresponsible or unhealthy; any true man 
still experiences them in crises, when he is profoundly 
affected by actual good or bad fortune of himself or of 
others. Such emotions are caused by outward circum- 
stances, not inward analysis or speculation, and are so 
overmastering in their pain or pleasure as to preclude all 
aesthetic dippings-in, or much rational balancing of pros 
and cons. They are downright emotions, like joy, grief, 
hate, fear, love, anger, and the like. Incipient, or in full 
glow, they are primarily unreflective, unsesthetic, simple, 
genuine, human, common to all men of blood and brain — 
in other words, elementary or universal feelings. 

Now, although the emotions of the Iliad are far more 
refined, complex, and rational than the impetuous passions 
of the ballads, they are like them in intensity and in truth 
to human nature — but to a more highly developed type 
of human nature.] If sentiment and sentimentality appear 
at times, especially in the episodical books, yet even in 
such passages there is always something so genuinely 
impassioned that we may safely call the Iliad a direct 
expression of the first feelings of man : it is based on < < the 
love of children, wife, and country; on the passion which 
outweighs all others, the love of glory." (Buckley.) 



lii POPE'S ILIAD. 



SUMMARY. 

The Iliad in its story, its style, and its emotions, shows 
a striking, if not an absolute, unity. Whether the unity 
results from the genius of a single creator, or from that 
of a whole line of poets, or from that of an individual poet 
working over old traditional material, makes no particular 
difference. Though the poem may, perhaps, be a com- 
munal work, it has, nevertheless, a dignity as great as that 
which the very greatest artist could possibly give ; its 
unity is then like that of the- superb Gothic cathedrals, 
erected by many different architects, and through several 
generations. Or, to use an illustration quite as intelli- 
gible, the unity is like that of our own Constitution, in 
which the body of the text was drafted from the ideas of 
many men, and to which successive generations have 
added amendments. This kind of unity may not be so 
mechanically rigid down to the very last letter as that of 
self-conscious art, but it makes up in scope and vitality — 
in essential spirit. If it robs us of the petty idiosyn- 
crasies of particular men, it enriches us with the best 
traits of a race. For, if in the cathedral, say, of Amiens, 
the parts built during various decades can easily be 
detected by minor differences in the materials and style ; 
the distinctive laws of Gothic are all and everywhere 
obeyed with rare spontaneity ; everywhere complexity is 
blended with orderliness, "liberty with self-restraint, 
audacity with prudence, science with emotion." And if, 



INTRODUCTION. liii 

in our Constitution, the language and ideas of the amend- 
ments may vary somewhat from those of the body of the 
text, yet every part is animated by the spirit of political 
equality and social liberty. 

We may, therefore, abandon ourselves, without critical 
compunctions, to the noble tale of the Iliad. " Let us, at 
least, learn to say with Emerson, — 

4 Beauty into my senses stole, 
I yielded myself to the perfect whole.' 

Even Wolf, the first great assailant of the single author- 
ship of the Iliad, relates how he became indignant at his 
own doubts, as often as he gave himself up to the golden 
spell of the epic story, that sweeps on like a majestic 
river moving resistless to the sea" — W. C. Lawton. 



III. THE HOMEEIC WOELD. 

A brief consideration of the kind of country in which 
the Achseans lived, and of the influence it must have had 
upon their character, will aid our study of Homeric 
life. 

The land. — Though small, the peninsula of Greece 
has a variety in climate and topography, and in its flora 
and fauna, that makes it one of the most favored regions 
in the world. Its coast-line, crumpled and indented by 
bays, inlets, and harbors, is of enormous length, and, con- 



liv POPE'S ILIAD. 

sequently, favorable to a hardy, sea-faring life. Within 
this border, lies a land of hills and mountains separated 
by varied streams. The climate, though in the main 
tropical, is cooled by sea- and mountain-breezes into a 
pleasant likeness of a temperate one. High hills and 
low pasture lands, snow and sunshine, the northern pine 
and the southern palm, wheat and the olive, the lemon and 
the vine — all appear in a sort of orderly confusion in any 
true picture of this wonderful little peninsula. Enclosing 
all is the sea, dotted eastward and southward by a multi- 
tude of small islands, " pleasant alike in their solitude and 
their society," which keep the mariner ever in sight of 
land, and prevent his feeling the desolation and dread of a 
barren ocean. Bathing land and sea is a mild atmosphere 
that at once softens and vivifies all colors, and sharpens 
all outlines with a magic that startles the traveller from our 
heavy northern climate, and justifies Euripides' descrip- 
tion of the Athenians as — 

" Ever delicately marching 
Through most pellucid air." 

lis influence on its inhabitants. — Although none of the 
natural features are so huge or so dangerous as to over- 
awe the mind, or to do more than stimulate human effort, 
they formed for long ages a stubborn barrier for each 
Grecian state against invasion from both foreigners and 
neighbors. Early Greece, therefore, fostered as many di- 
versities of secluded and self-supporting peoples as there 



INTRODUCTION. lv 

were diversities in natural conditions . ISTo wonder that in 
such an inspiring environment, the Greeks became an im- 
pressionable, bold, energetic, healthy race, fond of the 
open air, of variety, and of clear-cut visions, whether of 
the eye or imagination, and with a profound love of free- 
dom tempered by order. 

The early Greeks. — Not until long after the Dorians 
(a hardy people from the mountains of Thrace) came to 
this favored region, did the Greeks receive the national 
name of Hellenes, or did their authentic history emerge 
from a mass of legends and myths. It was still later, 
when the Hellenic character showed itself in its marvel- 
lous fulness, vigor, and complexity. Any picture of the 
Homeric or legendary age must, therefore, be somewhat 
vague, and must also differ considerably from that of the 
historical period. Too much, nevertheless, has usually 
been said of these differences, and too little of the funda- 
mental likeness between the two ages. However sepa- 
rated by time, and however differently composed as to 
tribes, we must never forget that the Homeric and post- 
Homeric peoples are of the same race ; that both are 
Greek, just as the England before the Norman conquest, 
and the England of to-day, are both essentially Anglo- 
Saxon. 

Basis of fact in the Homeric poems. — What life in the 
Homeric times was like, we can surmise with fulness only 
from the poems themselves. But we must be on our 
guard. Like all our best art, they are heightened and 



lvi POPE'S ILIAD. 

glorified pictures of things as the poetic imagination de- 
sired to see them, rather than of things seen literally; 
pictures of ideals rather than of fact. Scholars agree, 
however, that the civilization revealed in the Iliad and 
Odyssey is too vivid and complete not to have been in- 
spired by real life. This conclusion has been rendered 
more than probable by the recent researches of historians 
and archaeologists, and by the excavations of Schliemann 
and others in Greece and Asia Minor. But however great 
or small the basis of fact in the poems, they certainly ex- 
press, in spirit at least, how the Homeric peoples thought 
and acted. We may rest fairly content, then, with seeing 
the Homeric world with Homeric eyes ; that is, through 
the medium of the poems. 

Some Homeric ideas about the world, and some forms 
of Homeric society, are so different from our own, that the 
reader will be helped by the following summary. 

Homeric geography. — The earth was conceived of as a 
huge disk, its surface crumpled by mountains and valleys, 
and its borders washed by the tides of Oceanus, a great, 
rapid-flowing river. Only a single region, the central one, 
which included the countries around the iEgean, was well 
known. All beyond was a region of mystery and fable, 
resembling the wonderland of our fairy tales, where the 
traveller encountered strange natural conditions and still 
stranger men and manners. In one region of this twilight 
land of the imagination were the Lotus Eaters, the taste of 
whose honeyed flowers made Odysseus' men long to remain, 



INTRODUCTION. lvii 

forgetful of home and friends. Near by were the Cyclops, 
one-eyed, man-eating giants. Elsewhere were the Sirens, 
marvellous enchantresses, who lured mariners to death 
with sweet songs. And far off, in some region to the west, 
was the dread descent to the realm of Hades, the abode of 
the spectral dead. Within the known region, and on the 
west side of the Hellespont, lay the Achsean land, includ- 
ing most of the Peloponnesus ; and, on the other side of 
the Hellespont, along the west border of Asia Minor, was 
Troy and its neighboring states. 

Achceans vs. Trojans. — The Trojans are less disci- 
plined, masculine, and moral than their foes ; and their reli- 
gion is less vital and more ceremonious, showing traces 
of Asiatic influences, especially in a tendency to nature- 
worship. The war waged between these slightly effemi- 
nate Trojans and the more virile Achseans, seems a 
forerunner of the stubborn conflict later, in which Asiatic 
civilization was for long ages pitted against European, 
and which is not yet wholly ended. 

The Aehman state. — Diversities of character led to diver- 
sify of institutions ; but as the differences are not decided 
enough to require detailed study, we may assume that a 
guarded description of an Achsean state will approximate 
in most respects to a description of a Trojan one. The 
best way, perhaps, to define the government of an Achsean 
state, is to call it a loose or limited monarchy, sanctioned 
by tradition and religion, and possessing marked aristo- 
cratic and some democratic elements. 



lviii POPE'S ILIAD, 

The king. — In each state a class of nobles, or lords, of 
different ranks, ruled over the common people, and were 
in their turn subject to the king. The latter was simply 
a kind of head chief, or over-lord, who, although he was 
supposed to be descended from the gods, and thus ruled 
by divine and hereditary right, was oftentimes so little 
superior to the greater nobles in power as to seem hardly 
more than the first among equals. Certain privileges, 
however, marked him out distinctly from all other men ; 
he was the leader of the whole people in war, the supreme 
judge in peace, and took the chief part in public sacrifices 
to the gods. He was also president of two bodies, which 
enhanced his nominal dignity, but strongly limited his 
real power. These were the Council, or Boule, and the 
Assembly, or Agora. 

The king does not seem to have been forced to submit, 
measures before these two bodies, except when he judged 
it expedient. Practically, however, he appears to have 
been required to consult and conform to the wishes of his 
people, as expressed through these representative assem- 
blies, or else run the hazard of being deposed as an 
unfit or wicked ruler. In cases of doubt, he assembled, 
first, the Council ; and then, should he still be undecided, 
the Assembly. 

The Council The Council was aristocratic in nature. 

It was composed of a select number of chiefs, called ge- 
rontes, or elders, whose duty it was to advise the king by 
an open discussion of such state questions as he submitted 
to them. 



INTRODUCTION. lix 

The Assembly. — The Agora was comparatively popular 
and democratic in character, comprising all the free men 
of the realm. Though its members could not, it is true, 
originate, or perhaps discuss, measures, they could express 
approval or disapproval of certain of them ; and so, by 
public opinion, at least, influence the judgment of nobles 
and king. Still the commonalty, whether considered in 
peace or in war, was not held in much respect. Its quasi- 
voting power in the Boule was not authoritative in any 
way, except as indicating what the people might think. 
As warriors they are seldom mentioned, and then usually 
with contempt. 

Public rights. — Certain customs and traditions, or public 
rights, called dike and Ihemis, as binding as unwritten 
laws, also fixed the duties, and limited the privileges, of 
the king. 

" The word dike (justice) means l a way pointed out,' and so 
1 the course which usage prescribes.' The word themis, again, 
means, 'what has been laid down' ; i.e., first a decision in a 
particular case, ' a doom ; ' then the custom founded on former 
dooms. The plural i themistes ' denotes a body of such prece- 
dents. The Homeric king is entrusted by Zeus with ' the- 
mistes ' in the sense that he upholds these judicial precedents 
on which the rights of his people rest. A bad king is one who 
gives ' crooked judgments.' " — Jebb. 

Family life. — The king was, moreover, bound to act in 
accord with the simple principles of right and wrong by 
which every Achaean was restrained. These appear most 



lx POPE'S ILIAD. 

strongly in the family life, which was patriarchal in char- 
acter. Not only the ties between husband and wife, parent 
and child, but those between the most distant relatives, had 
a force and sacredness like those which bound together 
the early Scottish clans. The young were tenderly cared 
for, and the authority of the parent was revered. << The 
last adjuration of Hector to Achilles is in the name of his 
parents ; and the line in which Priam beseeches the tre- 
mendous warrior to remember Peleus (his father), is one 
of the most famous in literature. " (Gladstone.) Woman, 
especially as wife and mother, was honored with a simple 
dignity that is absent from later Greek life. Another 
family obligation was to treat suppliants and strangers, 
and even beggars, with heartfelt kindness. 

But the sphere of such obligations did not extend far ; the 
world did not, until ages later, include in its ideal the con- 
ception of the brotherhood of man, whether friend or alien. 

" Themis, the custom established by dooms, acts as a re- 
straining force within the largest circle of recognized relation- 
ships. But outside of that circle — when the Greek has to do 
with a mere alien — themis ceases to act, and we are in an age 
of violence. . . . [Yet] speaking generally, we may say that 
the Homeric Greeks appear as a gentle and generous race m 
a rude age. There is no trace of oriental vice or cruelty in its 
worst forms. Their sense of decency and propriety is remark- 
ably fine — even in some points in which their descendants 
were less delicate. If the Homeric man breaks themis in any 
way, he feels that others will disapprove. This feeling is called 



INTRODUCTION. lxi 

aidos. Hence . . . aidos has as many shades of meaning as 
there are ways in which themis can be broken : ' sense of 
honor,' ' shame,' ' reverence,' etc And the feeling with which 
he himself regards a breach of themis by another person, is 
called nemesis, — righteons indignation." — Jebb. 

Slavery. — Slavery appears, but is not severe, nor widely 
prevalent. The slave was regarded with a kindness and 
respect that is in marked contrast with the attitude of later 
times. He was even permitted to hold property of his 
own. This appears less strange when we learn that 
slaves were often persons of noble birth who had been 
taken prisoners in war, or kidnapped by pirates and mer- 
chants. But in spite of all palliations, the real degradation 
of slavery was fully recognized. " Zeus takes away the 
half of his manhood from a man, when the day of slavery 
overtakes him. 1 ' (Ody. xvii. 322.) 

Beligion. — All civil duties had also a religious aspect 
and a religious sanction. Obligations to the state, to 
king, to family, and even to slaves, were also obligations 
to the gods, who kept strict watch and Avard over men. 
Though these duties w r ere due to the gods in general, or 
as some writers express it, to the divinity of the gods as 
a whole, each important deity had guardianship, either 
alone or in common with one or more of the others, over 
special duties. Thus to Zeus, Athena, and Apollo, consid- 
ered as a group representing divine authority, all solemn 
oaths were addressed. Zeus had, however, particular 
charge of the rights of the stranger and the poor, as Athena 



lxii POPE'S ILIAD. 

had of all household arts, and Apollo of the things per- 
taining to prophesy. 

The gods. — The greater gods were fabled to dwell in 
Olympus, a mountain about one and a half miles high, its 
slopes covered with woods, caves, grottoes, etc. Its top, 
clad in eternal snow, was believed to rise above the clouds 
and to touch the skies. On the highest peak, in the pure 
air, or ether, and above the regions of snow, rain, and 
winds, Zeus had his throne and held his resplendent court, 
apart from men, yet near enough to aid or punish them. 
Olympus, the Odyssey tells us, " is the seat of the gods 
that standeth fast forever. Not by winds is it shaken, nor 
ever wet with rain ; but most clear air is spread about it 
cloudless, and the white light floats over it. Therein the 
blessed gods are glad for all their days." (Ody. vi.) 

The deities closely resemble colossal mortals of ideal 
form, awful because of their wisdom and superhuman or 
magical powers. But though mighty, wise, and, in the 
main, good, they are not all-powerful, all-knowing, nor 
yet wholly free from immorality. 

Zeus. — Zeus appears to hold about the same position 
among the other gods as a mortal king does among his 
nobles. The whole Olympian court, including its govern- 
ment and its manners, is a realm in wonderland, which 
resembles on a grand scale that of an Achaean state ; just 
as the kingdoms in our fairy-tales and romances are much 
like those of the real world, or as a child's picture of 
heaven is a glorified image of this earth. 



INTRODUCTION. lxiii 

The character of Zeus will exemplify the likeness and 
unlikeness of the Homeric divinities to men. 

" In the conception of Zeus, we find the most varied assem- 
blage of elements. He combines, more than any other deity, 
the human and theistic quality. ... At one time he is the 
ideal Providence, upholding the whole order and frame of 
things ; at another, he is the civil governor in the skies, curb- 
ing and controlling with a true political spirit the newly-com- 
pacted society of gods. . . . Here he often closely resembles 
Agamemnon ; but by and by he will touch also upon Falstaff. 
We owe to him, by etymology, the word jovial ; and it is truly 
descriptive of his character on his human side. As the very 
size and immeasurable waist of Falstaff have to do with the 
character of his mind, so largeness in all things is an unfailing 
characteristic of Zeus." [His laughter is at times rich, full, 
and human; at other times, sinister but grand — "a divine 
irony in the ordering of events." He views the warlike en- 
counters of mortals, and even of the other gods, with the free 
and hearty enjoyment of a father at the naive pranks of his 
children. " His soul laughed within him as he beheld the gods 
falling to in battle." At such times he himself seems naive to 
modern readers ; we cannot help smiling at him as well as with 
him.] . . . u Yet, behind the complex . . . machinery of the 
poem, there is still the presence and operation of an august 
personage, who has regard to piety wherever it is found ; 
4 Even in their perishing, I care for them ' ; and who works 
. . . for the permanent ends of justice among men, which 
were signally wrought out by the punishment and fall of guilty 
Troy. . . . He loved Troy for its abundant sacrifices : but his 
higher character forbade his acting to avert its doom. . . . 



lxiv POPE'S ILIAD. 

In the Iliad mainly, and in the Odyssey entirely, his will is 
worked out by other divine agents, themselves exercising their 
personal freedom, but bringing about the purposes of a council 
higher and larger than their own. This council has its back- 
ground ... in pure deity, and for pure deity, Zeus is often a 
synonym in Homer." — Gladstone. 

His partial likeness Co an elemental deity. — Another and 
most impressive aspect of Zeus is his likeness, in some of 
his attributes, to a nature-deity ; he is thought of, however 
vaguely and unconsciously, as god of the sky. Such cau- 
tion is necessary in dealing with this characteristic, and 
the degree to which it is present, that a few illustrations 
of what nature-deities are, will be serviceable. 

Primitive man easily imagines that a mood aroused in 
him by a stirring aspect of sky or earth is due to some 
spirit animating, dwelling in, or presiding over the scene. 
Even civilized man evinces the same tendency in a weak- 
ened degree when he speaks of the blustering wind, the 
angry fire, the stealthy cruelty of the sea, the glad meadows 
and fields, or the spirit of a place — say London — as work- 
ing its will upon the inhabitants there. This tendency to 
animate nature is called animism, and is shown in a crude 
form in the adoration barbaric peoples pay to fire, water, 
the sun, moon, etc., as visible gods. A noble, imaginative 
development of this crude animism into anthropomorphism 
(where the animating spirit is conceived of as possessing 
a human form and human attributes) , is found in our folk- 
lore and mythology. A few characters in our fairy-tales, 



INTRODUCTION. lxv 

like the Snow King, water sprites, mountain giants, and 
desert spectres, appear to personify physical forces, or else 
to have characters so much in keeping with the scenes 
over which they preside as to seem incarnations of the 
spirit of such scenes. Thus, too, in Scandinavian legends, 
Ymir is, among other things, the frost giant, Thor the god 
of Thunder, and Frey the deity of fruitful rains and sun- 
shine. Again, in such little real mythology as the Romans 
possessed, the naiads were goddesses of brooks and foun- 
tains, fauns the presiding spirits over fields and pastures, 
and Pan over woodlands, as well as the awakener of the 
sudden fright (Pan-ic) which seizes upon travellers astray 
in the forest or lonely places. In such creations as these, 
the old nature-attributes have become more or less spir- 
itualized. 

Now the Achaean religion, though not wholly a primi- 
tive one, seems to have been influenced by this last kind 
of nature-religion. But not to any very obvious degree, 
for the conscious belief that the gods embodied elemental 
forces had long been lost, if it ever existed. Unlike most 
of the Roman deities, the Homeric are too complex in char- 
acter, and too much like human beings, to be thought of 
primarily as nature deities or personifications of anything 
whatever. A high form of anthropomorphism has practi- 
cally transformed the animism. But it can hardly be 
denied that our impression of each one of the greater 
Olympian gods is pervaded by a vague feeling of awe, 
like that which we experience when deeply affected by a 



lxvi POPE'S ILIAD. 

sight of the heavens, the ocean, or a vast range of moun- 
tains. Round and through our conception of the highly 
human character of Zeus, plays the sublime idea that he 
is also god of the sky, and that all its changes, from the 
deep blue of its sunlit vault to the lightnings of a stormy 
day, express his powers and attributes. In the same man- 
ner we associate Poseidon with the sea, and Apollo with 
the beneficent or destructive effects of light. The student 
must not emphasize too much this element of the gods ; 
he has only to turn to the passage quoted from Gladstone, 
to see how the human qualities smother the dim sugges- 
tions of nature-qualities. 

The Underworld. — After his death, a man's spirit de- 
scended to the realm of Hades, which was a dim and joy- 
less, but not terrible, reflex of earthly life. 

" The underworld of Homer is a meagre and ill-fur- 
nished world, situated at the limits of the far west, in a 
region of perpetual twilight. The life of its inhabitants 
is a pale image of what they did on earth. Orion, a 
phantom-hunter, chases phantom beasts, — the ghosts of 
* the very beasts that he himself had slain on the lonely 
hills. 1 Minos sits in judgment, and holds a spectral tri- 
bunal. There is an automatic mimicry of the activities 
of the upper world. The one reality is the reality of tor- 
ment. A few great criminals, who have attempted to 
overpass the limits of existence, and encroach on the 
divine prerogatives, are visited with a punishment con- 
sisting in aimless effort or unsatisfied desire. Hades him- 



INTRODUCTION. lxvii 

self is the < hated of the gods, 1 and the souls go down to 
him lamenting. His land is desolate of joy, tenanted 
by < strengthless heads,' 'phantoms of men outworn. ' 
'Rather, 1 says Achilles, < would I live above the ground 
as the hireling of another, than bear sway among all the 
dead that be departed. 1 " — Butcher. 

Fate. — The authority of Zeus was supplemented by 
that of Fate, whether conceived of as a mysterious power, 
or as embodied in one or more spinners, which last con- 
ception is a slight approach toward the post-Homeric one 
of three sister-fates, each with a definite duty. Between 
the two authorities, the Homeric poems fix no exact limits, 
nor do they indicate clearly which power, if either, was 
superior. In fact, neither seems separate from the other, 
but they appear merged and coincident. The principal 
office of Fate appears in a passage from the last book of 
the Iliad, where that dark agency is personified as ' ' force- 
ful fate " that did " erst spin for Hector at his beginning, " 
his death-doom. Fate determines the destiny of every 
man, and is of course able to predict that destiny. The 
awfulness of this prophetic power over life and death is 
enhanced by the stern impartiality of every decree. 

The Erynnes. — The Erynnes were other fearful, super- 
natural powers. They were the avengers of wrong, alike 
among gods and men. " They punish all crimes against 
the family ; especially they execute the curses of injured 
parents on children. They do not allow the aged or the 
poor to be injured with impunity. They bring retribution 



lxviii POPE'S ILIAD. 

for perjury. In a word, they are the sanctions of natural 
law." (Gladstone.) 

Religious ceremonies. — In return for obedience to all 
these divine powers, and to the family and state as divine 
institutions, man received the favor of heaven. Partly in- 
cluded in this obedience, and partly the outward signs of 
it, were the ceremonies of religious worship. No priests 
were, however, necessary ; for the priest in Homer is 
little more than a soothsayer. Prayer was offered di- 
rectly to the gods by the individual himself, or more 
usually by the head of the family, tribe, or state. This 
simplicity accords well with the strong elementary feeling 
which was the essence of the Homeric religion, — "the 
feeling, " says Professor Jebb, " that all men have need of 
the gods." 

Fusion of religious and political elements. — We can 
realize, by this time, how inseparably fused were ideas of 
state, religion, and conduct. The gods had founded the 
state, and were its chief upholders. Every fundamental 
element in the social life was believed to be of divine ori- 
gin, to possess a divine sanction, and to subject its viola- 
tors to divine punishment. If we should regard our 
common law and our principal customs to be of reli- 
gious origin, and our religious doctrines to be part of the 
law of the land, so that little or no differences could be 
discerned between them, we should make a close approach 
to the Hellenic way of viewing the state. 



INTBODUCTION. lxix 

u The civilization based on these ideas and feelings was 
very unlike that of the later Greek world. The Homeric man 
already exhibits, indeed, the clear-cut Greek type of humanity : 
he has its essential qualities, mental and moral. But all his 
surroundings bespeak an age of transition. Crude contrasts 
abound. Luxuries and splendors of an eastern cast are 
mingled with the elements of squalid barbarism. Manners 
of the noblest chivalry and truest refinement are strangely 
crossed by traits of coarseness or ferocity. There are mo- 
ments when the Homeric hero is almost a savage." — Jebb. 

But it is the proportion of good over bad in any civil- 
ization that gives it worth. Judged by this standard, the 
Homeric civilization attains dignity. The Achseans revere 
law, yet love freedom ; they delight in natural beauty and 
physical health, but not to the harm of the mind. They 
are practical and warlike, yet are animated by lofty ideals 
which lingering traits of barbarism do not wholly dim. 
All these characteristics, summed up in the one phrase — 
4 love of proportion and intellectual fearlessness,' make 
them the virile precursors of the most wonderful artistic 
race the world has ever known — the Greeks of classic 
times . 

IV. SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHEES. 

Certain portions of Parts I. and II. of the Introduction 
were written primarily for teachers, and have been en- 
closed in brackets. They and the whole of Part HI. 



lxx POPE'S ILIAD. 

may be omitted from study, if the class is pressed for 
time. 

The teacher should first of all say something of the na- 
ture and import of the Iliad, then give a concise summary 
of the story (see pp. xxxiii. and 129), and follow this by 
reading to the class from the prose translation, selections 
which, like those used by Symonds in his Greek Poets, 
second series, pp. 44-59, illustrate some leading idea of 
the poem. This fore-knowledge will stimulate, not dull, 
the student's interest; the Iliad, like every great poetic 
masterpiece, does not depend upon mystery of plot, but 
gains in power as the reader gains in knowledge of its 
subject-matter. 

A just but sympathetic general criticism of Pope and 
his translation should be given as soon as the teacher 
judges it expedient, either before or after the actual study 
of the text is begun. Since the meaning of Pope's lan- 
guage is sufficiently plain, the pupil should be encouraged 
to read as rapidly as possible at first, and to put nearly 
his whole attention upon the development of the story, the 
nature of the characters, and the poetic suggestions. This 
will relieve the sing-song and end-stopped effect of the 
verse, and avoid the retarding technical analysis which 
dulls imaginative interest. Eventually, however, a serious 
study of Pope's characteristics, including his rhetorical 
artifices, should be made ; such work is absolutely neces- 
sary to a true appreciation of his peculiar genius . It need 



INTRODUCTION. lxxi 

not continue long, for his qualities readily — perhaps too 
readily — impress the wide-awake student. 

Occasional readings from Professor Gummere's selec- 
tions from the Old English Ballads will be sure, because 
of their swift, simple, direct, and fresh pictures of heroic 
life, to kindle the right kind of liking for Homer. 



V. BIBLIOGKAPHY. 

The following brief list, selected from the many help- 
ful books about Pope and Homer, will probably prove 
adequate for merely practical work. Mark Pattison, 
Alexander Pope, a short sketch in Ward's English Poets, 
Vol. in. (Macmillan) ; Leslie Stephen, Pope, in the 
English Men of Letters series (Harpers) ; W. J. Court- 
hope, Life of Pope, Vol. V. of El win's edition of Pope, 
10 vols. (Murray) ; Lowell, Pope, in My Study Windows 
(Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) ; De Quincey, Pope, in Bio- 
graphical Essays (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) ; E. C. Jebb, 
Introduction to Homer (Ginn & Co.) ; Primer of Greek 
Literature (Macm.), and Classical Greek Poetry (Hough- 
ton, M. & Co.) ; Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, 
First Series (Macm.) ; Walter Leaf, Companion to the 
Iliad (Macm.) ; S. H. Butcher, Aspects of Greek Genius 
(Macm.) ; J. A. Symonds, Greek Poets (Smith and Elder) ; 
W. C. Lawton, Art and Humanity in Homer (Macm.) ; 
Lang, Leaf, and Myers, Translation of the Iliad (Macm.) ; 



Ixxii POPE'S ILIAD. 

G. II. Palmer's Translation of the Odyssey (Houghton, 
M. &Co.). Gladstone's Homer (Macm.) ; Mr. Lang's 
Homer and the Epic (Longmans), and J. P. Mahaffy's 
Social Life in Greece (Macm.) will, in spite of their 
many defects, also be suggestive. 



POPE'S ILIAD. 



BOOK I. 

THE ARGUMENT. 

THE CONTENTION OF ACHILLES AND AGAMEMNON 

In the war of Troy, the Greeks having sacked some of the 
neighboring towns, and taken from thence two beautiful cap- 
tives, Chryseis and Briseis, allotted the first to Agamemnon, 
and the last to Achilles. Chryses, the father of Chryseis, and 
priest of Apollo, comes to the Grecian camp to ransom her ; 
with which the action of the poem opens, in the tenth year of 
the siege. The priest being refused and insolently dismissed 
by Agamemnon, entreats for vengeance from his god, who in- 
flicts a pestilence on the Greeks. Achilles calls a council, and 
encourages Chalcas to declare the cause of it, who attributes it 
to the refusal of Chryseis. The king being obliged to send back 
his captive, enters into a furious contest with Achilles, which 
Nestor pacifies ; however, as he had the absolute command of 
the army, he seizes on Briseis in revenge. Achilles in discon- 
tent withdraws himself and his forces from the rest of the 



2 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Greeks ; and complaining to Thetis, she supplicates Jupiter to 
render them sensible of the wrong done to her son, by giving 
victory to the Trojans. Jupiter granting her suit, incenses 
Juno, between whom the debate runs high, till they are recon- 
ciled by the address of Vulcan. 

The time of two-and-twenty days is taken up in this book ; 
nine during the plague, one in the council and quarrel of the 
Princes, and twelve for Jupiter's stay with the Ethiopians, at 
whose return Thetis prefers her petition. The scene lies in the 
Grecian camp, then changes to Chrysa, and lastly to Olympus. 

Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring 
Of woes unnumber'd, heav'nly goddess, sing ! 
That wrath which hurFd to Pluto's gloomy reign 
The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain ; 
Whose limbs, unburied on the naked shore, 
Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore : 
Since great Achilles and Atrides strove, 
Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of 
Jove! 

Declare, Muse ! in what ill-fated hour 
10 Sprung the fierce strife, from what offended power ? 
Latona's son a dire contagion spread, 
And heap'd the camp with mountains of the dead ; 
The king of men his rev'rend priest defied, 
And for the king's offence the people died. 

For Chryses sought with costly gifts to gain 



BOOK I. 6 

His captive daughter from the victor's chain. 

Suppliant the venerable father stands ; 

Apollo's awful ensigns grace, his hands : 

By these he begs ; and, lowly bending down, 

Extends the sceptre and the laurel crown. 20 

He sued to all, but chief implor'd for grace 

The brother-kings of Atreus' royal race : 

" Ye kings and warriors ! may your vows be 
crown' d, 
And Troy's proud walls lie level with the ground ; 
May Jove restore you, when your toils are o'er, 
Safe to the pleasures of your native shore. 
But oh ! relieve a wretched parent's pain, 
And give Chryse'is to these arms again ; 
If mercy fail, yet let my presents move, 
And dread avenging Phoebus, son of Jove." 30 

The Greeks in shouts their joint assent declare, 
The priest to rev'rence, and release the fair. 
Not so Atrides : he, with kingly pride, 
Repuls'd the sacred sire, and thus replied : 

" Hence on thy life, and fly these hostile plains, 
Nor ask, presumptuous, what the king detains ; 
Hence, with thy laurel crown and golden rod, 
Nor trust too far those ensigns of thy god. 
Mine is thy daughter, priest, and shall remain ; 
And prayers, and tears, and bribes, shall plead in 40 
vain ; 



4 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Till time shall rifle every youthful grace, 
And age dismiss her from my cold embrace ; 
In daily labors of the loom employed, 
Or doom'd to deck the bed she once enjoy 'd. 
Hence then ! to Argos shall the maid retire. 
Far from her native soil and weeping sire." 

The trembling priest along the shore returned, 
And in the anguish of a father mourn'd. 
Disconsolate, not daring to complain, 
50 Silent he wander'd by the sounding main ; 
Till, safe at distance, to his god he prays, 
The god who darts around the world his rays : 

" Smintheus ! sprung from fair Latona's line, 
Thou guardian power of Cilia the divine, 
• Thou source of light ! whom Tenedos adores, 

And whose bright presence gilds thy Chrysa's shores : 
If e'er with wreaths I hung thy sacred fane, 
Or fed the flames with fat of oxen slain ; 
God of the silver bow ! thy shafts employ, 
60 Avenge thy servant, and the Greeks destroy." 

Thus Chryses pray'd : the favoring power attends, 
And from Olympus' lofty tops descends. 
Bent was his bow, the Grecian hearts to wound ; 
Fierce, as he mov'd, his silver shafts resound. 
Breathing revenge, a sudden night he spread, 
And gloomy darkness rolFd around his head. 



BOOK I. 5 

The fleet in view, he twang'd his deadly bow. 

And hissing fly the feathered fates below. 

On mnles and dogs th' infection first began ; 

And last, the vengeful arrows fix'd in man. 70 

For nine long nights through all the dusky air 

The pyres thick-flaming shot a dismal glare. 

But ere the tenth revolving day was run, 

Inspired by Juno, Thetis' god-like son 

Convened to council all the Grecian train ; 

For much the goddess mourn'd her heroes slain. 

Th' assembly seated, rising o'er the rest, 
Achilles thus the king of men address'd : 

" Why leave we not the fatal Trojan shore, 
And measure back the seas we cross'd before ? 80 

The plague destroying whom the sword would spare, 
? Tis time to save the few remains of war. 
But let some prophet or some sacred sage 
Explore the cause of great Apollo's rage ; 
Or learn the wasteful vengeance to remove 
By mystic dreams, for dreams descend from Jove. 
If broken vows this heavy curse have laid, 
Let altars smoke, and hecatombs be paid. 
So heav'n aton'd shall dying Greece restore, 
And Phoebus dart his burning shafts no more." 90 

He said, and sate : when Calchas thus replied, 
Calchas the wise, the Grecian priest and guide, 



6 POPE'S ILIAD. 

That sacred seer, whose comprehensive view 
The past, the present, and the future knew ; 
Uprising slow, the venerable sage 
Thus spoke the prudence and the fears of age : 

" Belov'd of Jove, Achilles ! wouldst thou know 
Why angry Phoebus bends his fatal bow ? 
First give thy faith, and plight a prince's word 
100 Of sure protection, by thy pow'r and sword. 
For I must speak what wisdom would conceal, 
And truths invidious to the great reveal. 
Bold is the task, when subjects, grown too wise, 
Instruct a monarch where his error lies ; 
For though we deem the short-liv'd fury past, 
; Tis sure, the mighty will revenge at last." 

To whom Pelides : " From thy inmost soul 
Speak what thou know'st, and speak without control. 
Ev'n by that God I swear, who rules the day, 
no To whom thy hands the vows of Greece convey, 
And whose blest oracles thy lips declare : 
Long as Achilles breathes this vital air, 
No daring Greek, of all the numerous band, 
Against his priest shall lift an impious hand : 
Not ev'n the chief by whom our hosts are led, 
The king of kings, shall touch that sacred head." 

Encourag'd thus, the blameless man replies : 
"Nor vows unpaid, nor slighted sacrifice, 



BOOK L 7 

But he, our chief, provok'd the raging pest, 

Apollo's vengeance for his injured priest. 120 

Nor will the god's awaken' d fury cease, 

But plagues shall spread, and fun'ral fires increase, 

Till the great king, without a ransom paid, 

To her own Chrysa send the black-ey'd maid. 

Perhaps, with added sacrifice and pray'r, 

The priest may pardon, and the god may spare." 

The prophet spoke ; when, with a gloomy frown, 
The monarch started from his shining throne ; 
Black choler fill'd his breast, that boil'd with ire, 
And from his eyeballs flashed the living fire. 130 

"Augur accursed ! denouncing mischief still, 
Prophet of plagues, forever boding ill ! 
Still must that tongue some wounding message bring, 
And still thy priestly pride provoke thy king ? 
For this are Phoebus' oracles explored, 
To teach the Greeks to murmur at their lord ? 
For this with falsehoods is my honor stain' d, 
Is heaven offended, and a priest profan'd, 
Because my prize, my beauteous maid, I hold, 
And heav'nly charms prefer to proffer'd gold ? 140 

A maid, unmatched in manners as in face, 
Skill' d in each art, and crown'd with every grace : 
Not half so dear were Clytaemnestra's charms, 
When first her blooming beauties bless'd my arms. 



8 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Yet, if the gods demand her, let her sail ; 
Our cares are only for the public weal : 
Let me be deem'd the hateful cause of all, 
And suffer, rather than my people fall. 
The prize, the beauteous prize, I will resign, 

150 So dearly valu'd, and so justly mine. 

But since for common good I yield the fair, 
My private loss let grateful Greece repair ; 
Nor unrewarded let your prince complain, 
That he alone has fought and bled in vain.' 7 
" Insatiate king ! " (Achilles thus replies) 
" Fond of the pow'r, but fonder of the prize ! 
Wouldst thou the Greeks their lawful prey should 

yield, 
The due reward of many a well-fought field ? 
The spoils of cities raz'd and warriors slain, 

160 We share with justice, as with toil we gain : 
But to resume whatever thy avarice craves 
(That trick of tyrants) may be borne by slaves. 
Yet if our chief for plunder only fight, 
The spoils of Ilion shall thy loss requite, 
Whene'er, by Jove's decree, our conqu'ring pow'rs 
Shall humble to the dust her lofty tow'rs." 

Then thus the king : " Shall I my prize resign 
With tame content, and thou possess'd of thine ? 
Great as thou art, and like a god in fight, 



BOOK I. 9 

Think not to rob me of a soldier's right. no 

At thy demand shall I restore the maid ? 

First let the just equivalent be paid ; 

Such as a king might ask ; and let it be 

A treasure worthy her, and worthy me. 

Or grant me this, or with a monarch's claim 

This hand shall seize some other captive dame. 

The mighty Ajax shall his prize resign, 

Ulysses' spoils, or ev'n thy own, be mine. 

The man who suffers, loudly may complain ; 

And rage he may, but he shall rage in vain. iso 

But this when time requires — it now remains 

We launch a bark to plough the wat'ry plains, 

And waft the sacrifice to Chrysa's shores, 

With chosen pilots, and with laboring oars. 

Soon shall the fair the sable ship ascend, 

And some deputed prince the charge attend. 

This Creta's king, or Ajax shall fulfil, 

Or wise Ulysses see performed our will; 

Or, if our royal pleasure shall ordain, 

Achilles' self conduct her o'er the main; 190 

Let fierce Achilles, dreadful in his rage, 

The god propitiate, and the pest assuage." 

At this, Pelides, frowning stern, replied : 
" tyrant, arm'd with insolence and pride ! 
Inglorious slave to int'rest, ever join'd 



10 POPE'S ILIAD. 

With fraud, unworthy of a royal mind ! 
What gen'rous Greek, obedient to thy word, 
Shall form an ambush, or shall lift the sword ? 
What cause have I to war at thy decree ? 

200 The distant Trojans never injur'd me : 

To Phthia's realms no hostile troops they led ; 
Safe in her vales my warlike coursers fed ; 
Far hence remov'd, the hoarse-resounding main 
And walls of rock secure my native reign, 
Whose fruitful soil luxuriant harvests grace, 
Rich in her fruits, and in her martial race. 
Hither we saiPd, a voluntary throng, 
T ? avenge a private, not a public wrong : 
What else to Troy th ? assembled nations draws, 

210 But thine, ungrateful, and thy brother's cause ? 
Is this the pay our blood and toils deserve, 
Disgrac'd and injur'd by the man we serve ? 
And dar'st thou threat to snatch my prize away, 
Due to the deeds of many a dreadful day, 
A prize as small, tyrant, matched with thine, 
As thy own actions if compared to mine ! 
Thine in each conquest is the wealthy prey, 
Though mine the sweat and danger of the day. 
Some trivial present to my ships I bear, 

220 Or barren praises pay the wounds of war. 

But know, proud monarch, I'm thy slave no more ; 



BOOK I. 11 

My fleet shall waft me to Thessalia's shore. 

Left by Achilles on the Trojan plain, 

What spoils, what conquests, shall Atrides gain ? " 

To this the king : " Fly, mighty warrior, fly ! 
Thy aid we need not and thy threats defy. 
There want not chiefs in such a cause to fight, 
And Jove himself shall guard a monarch's right. 
Of all the kings (the gods' distinguished care) 
To pow'r superior none such hatred bear ; 230 

Strife and debate thy restless soul employ, 
And wars and horrors are thy savage joy. 
If thou hast strength, 'twas heav'n that strength be- 
stowed, 
For know, vain man ! thy valor is from God. 
Haste, launch thy vessels, fly with speed away, 
Eule thy own realms with arbitrary sway : 
I heed thee not, but prize at equal rate 
Thy short-liv'd friendship and thy groundless hate. 
Go, threat thy earth-born Myrmidons ; but here 
? Tis mine to threaten, prince, and thine to fear. 240 

Know, if the god the beauteous dame demand, 
My bark shall waft her to her native land ; 
But then prepare, imperious prince ! prepare, 
Fierce as thou art, to yield thy captive fair : 
Ev'n in thy tent I'll seize the blooming prize, 
Thy lov'd Briseis with the radiant eyes. 



12 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Hence shalt thou prove my might, and curse the hour 
Thou stood' st a rival of imperial pow'r; 
And hence to all our host it shall be known 

250 That kings are subject to the gods alone." 

Achilles heard, with grief and rage oppressed ; 
His heart swell'd high, and labored in his breast. 
Distracting thoughts by turns his bosom ruPd, 
Now fiVd by wrath, and now by reason cooPd : 
That prompts his hand to draw the deadly sword, 
Force thro ? the Greeks, and pierce their haughty lord ; 
This whispers soft, his vengeance to control, 
And calm the rising tempest of his soul. 
Just as in anguish of suspense he stay'd, 

260 While half unsheathed appeared the glittering blade, 
Minerva swift descended from above, 
Sent by the sister and the wife of Jove 
(For both the princes claimed her equal care) ; 
Behind she stood, and by the golden hair 
Achilles seiz'd; to him alone confessed, 
A sable cloud conceaPd her from the rest. 
He sees, and sudden to the goddess cries, 
Known by the flames that sparkle from her eyes : 
" Descends Minerva in her guardian care, 

270 A heav'nly witness of the wrongs I bear 

From Atreus' son ? Then let those eyes that view 
The daring crime, behold the vengeance too." 



BOOK I. 13 

" Forbear ! " (the progeny of Joye replies) 
" To calm thy fury I forsake the skies : 
Let great Achilles, to the gods resigned, 
To reason yield the empire o'er his mind. 
By awful Juno this command is giv'n ; 
The king and you are both the care of heav'n. 
The force of keen reproaches let him feel, 
But sheath, obedient, thy revenging steel. 280 

For I pronounce (and trust a heav'nly pow'r) 
Thy injur' d honor has its fated hour, 
When the proud monarch shall thy arms implore, 
And bribe thy friendship with a boundless store. 
Then let revenge no longer bear the sway, 
Command thy passions, and the gods obey." 

To her Pelides : " With regardful ear, 
? Tis just, goddess ! I thy dictates hear. 
Hard as it is, my vengeance I suppress ; 
Those who revere the gods, the gods will bless." 2 90 

He said, observant of the blue-ey'd maid ; 
Then in the sheath returned the shining blade. 
The goddess swift to high Olympus flies, 
And joins the sacred senate of the skies. 

Nor yet the rage his boiling breast forsook, 
Which thus redoubling on Atrides broke : 
" monster ! mix'd of insolence and fear, 
Thou dog in forehead, but in heart a deer ! 



14 POPE'S ILIAD. 

When wert thou known in ambush'd fights to dare, 
300 Or nobly face the horrid front of war ? 

'Tis ours the chance of fighting fields to try ; 

Thine to look on and bid the valiant die. 

So much 'tis safer thro' the camp to go, 

And rob a subject, than despoil a foe. 

Scourge of thy people, violent and base ! 

Sent in Jove's anger on a slavish race, 

Who, lost to sense of gen'rous freedom past, 

Are tam'd to wrongs, or this had been thy last. 

Now by this sacred sceptre hear me swear, 
310 Which never more shall leaves or blossoms bear, 

Which, sever' d from the trunk (as I from thee), 

On the bare mountains left its parent tree ; 

This sceptre, form'd by temper' d steel to prove 

An ensign of the delegates of Jove, 

From whom the pow'r of laws and justice springs 

(Tremendous oath ! inviolate to kings) : 
f By this I swear, when bleeding Greece again 

Shall call Achilles, she shall call in vain. 

When, flush'd with slaughter, Hector comes to spread 
320 The purpled shore with mountains of the dead, 

Then shalt thou mourn th' affront thy madness gave, 

Forc'd to deplore, when impotent to save : 

Then rage in bitterness of soul, to know 

This act has made the bravest Greek thy foe." 



) 



BOOK L 15 

He spoke ; and furious hurl'd against the ground 
His sceptre starr'd with golden studs around ; 
Then sternly silent sate. With like disdain, 
The raging king returned his frowns again. 

To calm their passion with the words of age, 
Slow from his seat arose the Pylian sage, 33 o 

Experienced Nestor, in persuasion skilFd ; 
Words sweet as honey from his lips distilPd : 
Two generations now had pass'd away, 
Wise by his rules, and happy by his sway ; 
Two ages o'er his native realm he reign' d, 
And now th' example of the third remained. 
All view'd with awe the venerable man, 
Who thus with mild benevolence began : 

" What shame, what woe is this to Greece ! what 

To Troy's proud monarch and the friends of Troy ! 340 

That adverse gods commit to stern debate 

The best, the bravest, of the Grecian state. 

Young as ye are, this youthful heat restrain, 

Nor think your Nestor's years and wisdom vain. 

A godlike race of heroes once I knew, 

Such as no more these aged eyes shall view ! 

Lives there a chief to match Pirithous' fame, 

Dryas the bold, or Ceneus' deathless name ; 

Theseus, endued with more than mortal might, 



16 POPE'S ILIAD. 

350 Or Polyphemus, like the gods in fight ? 

With these of old to toils of battle bred, 

In early youth my hardy days I led ; 

Eir'd with the thirst which virtuous envy breeds, 

And smit with love of honorable deeds. 

Strongest of men, they pierc'd the mountain boar, 

Bang'd the wild deserts red with monsters' gore, 

And from their hills the shaggy Centaurs tore. 

Yet these with soft persuasive arts I sway'd ; 

When Nestor spoke, they listened and obey'd. 
360 If in my youth, ev ? n these esteem' d me wise, 

Do you, young warriors, hear my age advise. 

Atrides, seize not on the beauteous slave ; 

That prize the Greeks by common suffrage gave : 

Nor thou, Achilles, treat our prince with pride ; 

Let kings be just, and sovereign pow'r preside. 

Thee the first honors of the war adorn, 

Like gods in strength and of a goddess born ; 

Him awful majesty exalts above 

The powers of earth and sceptred sons of Jove. 
370 Let both unite with well-consenting mind, 

So shall authority with strength be join'd. 

Leave me, king ! to calm Achilles' rage ; 

Rule thou thyself, as more advanced in age. 

Forbid it, gods ! Achilles should be lost, 

The pride of Greece, and bulwark of our host." 



BOOK I. 17 

This said, he ceased ; the king of men replies 
" Thy years are awful, and thy words are wise. 
But that imperious, that unconquer'd soul, 
Ko laws can limit, no respect control : 
Before his pride must his superiors fall, 380 

His word the law, and he the lord of all ? 
Him must our hosts, our chiefs, ourself obey ? ; 
What king can bear a rival in his sway ? 
Grant that the gods his matchless force have giv'n ; 
Has foul reproach a privilege from heav'n ? " 

Here on the monarch's speech Achilles broke, 
And furious, thus, and interrupting, spoke : 
" Tyrant, I well deserved thy galling chain, 
To live thy slave, and still to serve in vain, 
Should I submit to each unjust decree : 390 

Command thy vassals, but command not me. 
Seize on Briseis, whom the Grecians doom'd 
My prize of war, yet tamely see resumed ; 
And seize secure ; no more Achilles draws 
His conquering sword in any woman's cause. 
The gods command me to forgive the past ; 
But let this first invasion be the last : 
For know, thy blood, when next thou dar'st invade, 
Shall stream in vengeance on my reeking blade/' 

At this they ceas'd ; the stern debate expir'd : 400 

The chiefs in sullen majesty retir'd. 



18 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Achilles with Patroclus took his way, 
Where near his tents his hollow vessels lay. 
Meantime Atrides launched with numerous oars 
A well-rigg'cl ship for Chrysa's sacred shores : 
High on the deck was fair Chryseis plac'd, 
And sage Ulysses with the conduct grac'd : 
Safe in her sides the hecatomb they stow'd, 
Then, swiftly sailing, cut the liquid road. 

410 The host to expiate next the king prepares, 
^Vith pure lustrations and with solemn pray'rs. 
Wash'd by the briny wave, the pious train 
Are cleans'd ; and cast th ? ablutions in the main. J 
Along the shores whole hecatombs were laid, 
And bulls and goats to Phoebus' altars paid. 
The sable fumes in curling spires arise, 
And waft their grateful odors to the skies. 

The army thus in sacred rites engag'd, 
Atrides still with deep resentment rag'd. 

420 To wait his will two sacred heralds stood, 
Talthybius and Eurybates the good. 
" Haste to the fierce Achilles' tent " (he cries), 
u Thence bear Briseis as our royal prize : 
Submic he must ; or, if they will not part, 
Ourself in arms shall tear her from his heart." 

• Th' unwilling heralds act their lord's commands ; 
Pensive they walk along the barren sands : 



BOOK L 19 

Arrived, the hero in his tent they find, 
With gloomy aspect, on his arm reclin'd. 
At awful distance long they silent stand, 430 

Loth to advance or speak their hard command ; 
Decent confusion ! This the godlike man 
Perceiv'd, and thus with accent mild began : 
" With leave and honor enter our abodes, 
Ye sacred ministers of men and gods ! 
I know your message; by constraint you came; 
Not you, but your imperious lord, I blame. 
Patroclus, haste, the fair Briseis bring ; 
Conduct my captive to the haughty king. 
But witness, heralds, and proclaim my vow, 443 

Witness to gods above and men below ! 
But first and loudest to your prince declare, 
That lawless tyrant whose commands you bear; 
Unmov'd as death Achilles shall remain, 
Tho' prostrate Greece should bleed at ev'ry vein : 
The raging chief in frantic passion lost, 
Blind to himself, and useless to his host, 
Unskilled to judge the future by the past, 
In blood and slaughter shall repent at last." 

Patroclus now th' unwilling beauty brought ; 450 

She, in soft sorrows and in pensive thought, 
. Pass'd silent, as the heralds held her hand, 
And oft look'd back, slow-moving o'er the strand. 



20 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Not so his loss the fierce Achilles bore ; 
But sad retiring to the sounding shore, 
O'er the wild margin of the deep he hung, 
That kindred deep from whence his mother sprung ; 
There, bath'd in tears of anguish and disdain, 
Thus loud lamented to the stormy main : 

460 " parent goddess ! since in early bloom 
Thy son must fall, by too severe a doom ; 
Sure, to so short a race of glory born, 
Great Jove in justice should this span adorn. 
Honor and fame at least the Thund'rer ow'd ; 
And ill he pays the promise of a god, 
If yon proud monarch thus thy son defies, 
Obscures my glories, and resumes my prize. " 

Far in the deep recesses of the main, 
Where aged Ocean holds his wat'ry reign, 

470 The goddess-mother heard. The waves divide ; 
And like a mist she rose above the tide ; 
Beheld him mourning on the naked shores, 
And thus the sorrows of his soul explores : 
" Why grieves my son ? Thy anguish let me share, 
Reveal the cause, and trust a parent's care." 

He, deeply sighing, said : " To tell my woe 
Is but to mention what too well you know. 
From Thebe, sacred to Apollo's name, 
Eetion's realm, our conqu'ring army came, 



BOOK I. 21 

With treasure loaded and triumphant spoils, 480 

Whose just division crown' d the soldier's toils ; 

But bright Chryse'is, heav'nly prize ! was led 

By vote selected to the gen'ral's bed. 

The priest of Phoebus sought by gifts to gain 

His beauteous daughter from the victor's chain; 

The fleet he reached, and, lowly bending down, 

Held forth the sceptre and the laurel crown, 

Entreating all ; but chief irnplor'd for grace 

The brother-kings of Atreus' royal race. 

The gen'rous Greeks their joint consent declare, 490 

The priest to reverence, and release the fair. 

Not so Atrides : he, with wonted pride, 

The sire insulted, and his gifts denied : 

Th' insulted sire (his god's peculiar care) 

To Phoebus pray'd, and Phoebus heard the pray'r. 

A dreadful plague ensues ; th' avenging darts 

Incessant fly, and pierce the Grecian hearts. 

A prophet then, inspired by heav'n, arose, 

And points the crime, and thence derives the woec ■ 

Myself the first th' assembled chiefs incline 500 

T' avert the vengeance of the pow'r divine ; 

Then, rising in his wrath, the monarch storm'd ; 

Incens'd he threatened, and his threats performed : 

The fair Chryseis to her sire was sent, 

With offer' d gifts to make the god relent ; 



22 POPE'S ILIAD. 

But now he seized Briseis' heav'nly charms, 
And of my valor's prize defrauds my arms, 
Defrauds the votes of all the Grecian train ; 
And service, faith, and justice plead in vain. 

510 But, goddess ! thou thy suppliant son attend, 
To high Olympus' shining court ascend, 
Urge all the ties to former service ow'd, 
And sue for vengeance to the thund'ring god. 
Oft hast thou triumphed in the glorious boast 
That thou stood' st forth, of all th' ethereal host, 
When bold rebellion shook the realms above, 
Th' undaunted guard of cloud-compelling Jove, 
When the bright partner of his awful reign, 
The warlike maid, and monarch of the main, 

520 The traitor-gods, by mad ambition driv'n, 

Durst threat with chains th' omnipotence of heav'n. 
Then call'd by thee, the monster Titan came 
(Whom gods Briarelis, men iEgeon name) ; 
Through wand'ring skies enormous stalk'd along, 
Not he that shakes the solid earth so strong : 
With giant-pride at Jove's high throne he stands, 
And brandish'd round him all his hundred hands. 
Th' affrighted gods confess'd their awful lord, 
They dropp'd the fetters, trembled and ador'd. 

530 This, goddess, this to his rememb'rance call, 
Embrace his knees, at his tribunal fall ; 



BOOK I. 23 

^Conjure him far to drive the Grecian train, 
To hurl them headlong to their fleet and main, 
To heap the shores with copious death, and bring 
The Greeks to know the curse of such a king. 
Let Agamemnon lift his haughty head 
O'er all his wide dominion of the dead, 
And mourn in blood, that e'er he durst disgrace 
The boldest warrior of the Grecian race."^ 

" Unhappy son ! " (fair Thetis thus replies, 540 

While tears celestial trickle from her eyes) 
« Why have I borne thee with a mother's throes, 
To fates averse, and nurs'd for future woes ? 
So short a space the light of heav'11 to view ! 
So short a space ! and filFd with sorrow, too ! 
Oh, might a parent's careful wish prevail, 
Far, far from Ilion should thy vessels sail, 
And thou, from camps remote, the danger shun, 
Which now, alas ! too nearly threats my son ; 
Yet (what I can) to move thy suit I'll go 550 

To great Olympus crown'd with fleecy snow. 
Meantime, secure within thy ships, from far 
Behold the field, nor mingle in the war. 
The sire of gods and all th' ethereal train 
On the warm limits of the farthest main, 
Now mix with mortals, nor disdain to grace 
The feasts of ^Ethiopia's blameless race ; 



24 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Twelve days the pow'rs indulge the genial rite, 

Returning with the twelfth revolving light. 
560 Then will I mount the brazen dome, and move 

The high tribunal of immortal Jove." 

The goddess spoke : the rolling waves unclose ; 

Then down the deep she plung'd, from whence she 
rose, 

And left him sorrowing on the lonely coast, 

In wild resentment for the fair he lost. 
In Chrysa's port now sage Ulysses rode ; 

Beneath the deck the destin'd victims stow'd ; 

The sails they furPd, they lash'd the mast aside, 

And dropped their anchors, and the pinnace tied. 
570 Next on the shore their hecatomb they land, 

Chryseis last descending on the strand. 

Her, thus returning from the furrow' d main, 

Ulysses led to Phoebus' sacred fane ; 

Where, at his solemn altar, as the maid 

He gave to Chryses, thus the hero said : 

" Hail, rev'rend priest ! to Phoebus' awful dome 

A suppliant I from great Atrides come : 

Unransom'd here receive the spotless fair ; 

Accept the hecatomb the Greeks prepare ; 
580 And may thy god, who scatters darts around, 

Aton'd by sacrifice, desist to wound." 

At this the sire embraced the maid again, 



BOOK I. 25 

So sadly lost, so lately sought in vain. 
Then near the altar of the darting king, 
Disposed in rank their hecatomb they bring ; 
With water purify their hands, and take 
The sacred offering of the salted cake ; 
While thus, with arms devoutly raised in air, 
And solemn voice, the priest directs his pray'r : 

" God of the silver bow, thy ear incline, * 590 

Whose pow'r encircles Cilia the divine ; 
Whose sacred eye thy Tenedos surveys, 
And gilds fair Chrysa with distinguish' d rays ! 
If, fir'd to vengeance at thy priest's request, 
Thy direful darts inflict the raging pest ; 
Once more attend ! avert the wasteful woe, 
And smile propitious, and unbend thy bow." 

So Chryses pray'd ; Apollo heard his pray'r : 
And now the Greeks their hecatomb prepare ; 
Between their horns the salted barley threw, 600 

And with their heads to heav'n the victims slew : 
The limbs they sever from th' inclosing hide ; 
The thighs, selected to the gods, divide ; 
On these, in double cauls involv'd with art, 
The choicest morsels lay from ev'ry part. 
The priest himself before his altar stands, 
And burns the off'ring with his holy hands, 
Pours the black wine, and sees the flame aspire ; 



26 POPE'S ILIAD. 

The youths with instruments surround the fire. 

6io The thighs thus sacrificed, and entrails dress'd, 
Th' assistants part, transfix, and roast the rest ; 
Then spread the tables, the repast prepare, 
Each takes his seat, and each receives his share. 
When now the rage of hunger was repressed, 
With pure libations they conclude the feast ; 
The youths with wine the copious goblets crown'd, 
And, pleas'd, dispense the flowing bowls around. 
With hymns divine the joyous banquet ends, 
The paeans lengthened till the sun descends ; 

620 The Greeks, restored, the grateful notes prolong : 
Apollo listens, and approves the song. 

'Twas night ; the chiefs beside their vessel lie, 
Till rosy morn had purpled o'er the sky : 
Then launch, and hoise the mast ; indulgent gales, 
Supplied by Phoebus, fill the swelling sails ; 
The milk-white canvas bellying as they blow, 
The parted ocean foams and roars below : 
Above the bounding billows swift they flew, 
Till now the Grecian camp appeared in view. 

630 Ear on the beach they haul their bark to land 
(The crooked keel divides the yellow sand), 
Then part, where, stretch' d along the winding bay, 
The ships and tents in mingled prospect lay. 
But, raging still, amidst his navy sate 



BOOK I. 27 

The stern Achilles, steadfast in his hate ; 
Nor mix'd in combat nor in council join'd; 
But wasting cares lay heavy on his mind ; 
In his black thoughts revenge and slaughter roll, 
And scenes of blood rise dreadful in his soul. 

Twelve days were past, and now the dawning light G40 
The gods had summon' d to th' Olympian height : 
Jove, first ascending from the wat'ry bow'rs, 
Leads the long order of ethereal powers. 
When, like the morning mist, in early day, 
Eose from the flood the daughter of the sea ; 
And to the seats divine her flight addressed. 
There, far apart, and high above the rest, 
The Thund'rer sate ; where old Olympus shrouds 
His hundred heads in heav'n and props the clouds. 
Suppliant the goddess stood : one hand she placed 650 

Beneath his beard, and one his knees embraced. 
" If e'er, father of the gods ! " she said, 
" My words could please thee, or my actions aid ; 
Some marks of honor on my son bestow, 
And pay in glory what in life you owe. 
Fame is at least by heav'nly promise due 
To life so short, and now dishonored, too. 
Avenge this wrong, ever just and wise ! 
Let Greece be humbled, and the Trojans rise; 
Till the proud king, and all th' Achaian race, 660 



28 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Shall heap with honors him they now disgrace." 

Thus Thetis spoke, but Jove in silence held 
The sacred councils of his breast conceal'd. 
Not so repuls'd, the goddess closer press'd, 
Still grasp'd his knees, and urg'd the dear request. 
" sire of gods and men ! thy suppliant hear ; 
Refuse, or grant ; for what has Jove to fear ? 
Or, oh ! declare, of all the pow'rs above, 
Is wretched Thetis least the care of Jove ? " 

670 She said, and sighing thus the god replies, 
Who rolls the thunder o'er the vaulted skies : 

"What hast thou ask'd ? Ah! why should Jove 
engage 
In foreign contests and domestic rage, 
The gods' complaints, and Juno's fierce alarms, 
While I, too partial, aid the Trojan arms ? 
Go, lest the haughty partner of my sway 
With jealous eyes thy close access survey ; 
But part in peace, secure thy pray'r is sped : 
Witness the sacred honors of our head, 

680 The nod that ratifies the will divine, 
The faithful, fix'd, irrevocable sign ; 
This seals thy suit, and this fulfils thy vows " — 
He spoke, and awful bends his sable brows, 
Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod, 
The stamp of fate, the sanction of the god : 



BOOK I. 29 

High heav'n with trembling the dread signal took, 
And all Olympus to the centre shook. 

Swift to the seas profound the goddess flies, 
Jove to his starry mansion in the skies. 
The shining synod of th' immortals wait 690 

The 3oming god, and from their thrones of state 
Arising silent, rapt in holy fear, 
Before the majesty of heav'n appear. 
Trembling they stand, while Jove assumes the throne, 
All but the god's imperious queen alone : 
Late had she view'd the silver-footed dame, 
And all her passions kindled into flame. 
" Say, artful manager of heav'n " (she cries), 
" Who now partakes the secrets of the skies ? 
Thy Juno knows not the decrees of fate, 700 

In vain the partner of imperial state. 
What f av'rite goddess then those cares divides, 
Which Jove in prudence from his consort hides ? " 

To this the Thund'rer : " Seek not thou to find 
The sacred counsels of almighty mind ; 
Involved in darkness lies the great decree, 
Nor can the depths of fate be pierc'd by thee. 
What fits thy knowledge, thou the first shalt know : 
The first of gods above and men below ; 
But thou nor they shall search the thoughts that roll 710 
Deep in the close recesses of my soul." 



30 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Full on the sire, the goddess of the skies 
BolPd the large orbs of her majestic eyes, 
And thus returned : " Austere Saturnius, say, 
From whence this wrath, or who controls thy sway ? 
Thy boundless will, for me, remains in force, 
And all thy counsels take the destin'd course : 
But 'tis for Greece I fear ; for late was seen 
In close consult the silver-footed queen. 

720 Jove to his Thetis nothing could deny, 

Nor was the signal vain that shook the sky. 
What fatal favor has the goddess won, 
To grace her fierce inexorable son ? 
Perhaps in Grecian blood to drench the plain, 
And glut his vengeance with my people slain." 

Then thus the god : " Oh, restless fate of pride, 
That strives to learn what heav'n resolves to hide ! 
Vain is the search, presumptuous and abhorr'd 
Anxious to thee and odious to thy lord. 

730 Let this suffice ; th' immutable decree 

No force can shake : what is that ought to be, 
Goddess, submit, nor dare our will withstand, 
But dread the pow'r of this avenging hand ; 
Th ? united strength of all the gods above 
In vain resists th ? omnipotence of Jove." 

The Thund'rer spoke, nor durst the queen reply ; 
A rev'rend horror silenc'd all the sky. 






BOOK I. 31 

The feast disturb'd, with sorrow Vulcan saw 

His mother menaced, and the gods in awe ; 

Peace at his heart, and pleasure his design, 740 

Thus interposed the architect divine : 

" The wretched quarrels of the mortal state 

Are far unworthy, gods ! of your debate : 

Let men their days in senseless strife employ ; 

We, in eternal peace and constant joy. 

Thou, goddess-mother, with our sire comply, 

Nor break the sacred union of the sky : 

Lest, rous'd to rage, he shake the blest abodes, 

Launch the red lightning, and dethrone the gods. 

If you submit, the Thund'rer stands appeas'd ; 750 

The gracious pow'r is willing to be pleas'd." 

Thus Vulcan spoke ; and, rising with a bound, 
The double bowl with sparkling nectar crown'd, 
Which held to Juno in a cheerful way, 
" Goddess" (he cried), "be patient and obey. 
Dear as you are, if Joye his arm extend, 
I can but grieve, unable to defend. 
What god so daring in your aid to move, 
Or lift his hand against the force of Jove ? 
Once in your, cause I felt his matchless might, 76 j 

Hurl'd headlong downward from th ? ethereal height ; 
Toss'd all the day in rapid circles round ; 
Nor, till the sun descended, touched the ground : 



32 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Breathless I fell, in giddy motion lost ; 

The Sinthians rais'd me on the Lemnian coast." 
He said, and to her hand the goblet heav'd, 

Which, with a smile, the white-armed queen receiv'd. 

Then to the rest he filFd ; and, in his turn, 

Each to his lips applied the nectar'd urn. 
770 Vulcan with awkward grace his office plies, 

And unextinguished laughter shakes the skies. 
Thus the blest gods the genial day prolong, 

In feasts ambrosial and celestial song. 

Apollo tun'd the lyre ; the muses round 

With voice alternate aid the silver sound. 

Meantime the radiant sun, to mortal sight 

Descending swift, rolFd down the rapid light. 

Then to their starry domes the gods depart, 

The shining monuments of Vulcan's art : 
780 Jove on his couch reclin'd his awful head, 

And Juno slumber'd on the golden bed. 



BOOK VI. 33 



BOOK VI. 1 

THE AKGUMENT. 

THE EPISODES OF GLATJCUS AND DIOMED, AND OE HECTOR 
AND ANDROMACHE. 

The gods having left the field, the Grecians prevail. Hele- 
nus, the chief augur of Troy, commands Hector to return to 
the city, in order to appoint a solemn procession of the queen 
and the Trojan matrons to the temple of Minerva, to entreat 
her to remove Diomed from the fight. The battle relaxing 
during the absence of Hector, Glaucus and Diomed have an 
interview between the two armies ; where, coming to the knowl- 
edge of the friendship and hospitality past between their 
ancestors, they make exchange of their arms. Hector, hav- 
ing performed the orders of Helenus, prevails upon Paris to 
return to the battle, and, taking a tender leave of his wife 
Andromache, hastens again to the field. 

The scene is first in the field of battle, between the rivers 
Simois and Scamander, and then changes to Troy. 



1 The four preceding books tell of the advance of the armies, the 
making of a truce, a duel between Menelaus and Paris, the perfidious 
breaking of the truce by the Trojans, and a portion of the first battle, 
in which the gods take part. 



34 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Now heav'n forsakes the fight ; th ? immortals yield 
To human force and human skill the field : 
Dark show'rs of jav'lins fly from foes to foes; 
Now here, now there, the tide of combat flows ; 
While Troy's fam'd streams, that bound the deathful 

plain, 
On either side run purple to the main. 

Great Ajax first to conquest led the way, 
Broke the thick ranks, and turn'd the doubtful day. 
The Thracian Acamas his falchion found, 

10 And hew'd th ? enormous giant to the ground ; 
His thundering arm a deadly stroke impressed 
Where the black horse-hair nodded o'er his crest : 
Fix'd in his front the brazen weapon lies, 
And seals in endless shades his swimming eyes. 

Next Teuthras' son distain'd the sands with blood, 
Axylus, hospitable, rich, and good : 
In fair Arisbe's walls (his native place) 
He held his seat ; a friend to human race. 
Past by the road, his ever-open door 

20 Oblig'd the wealthy, and relieved the poor. 
To stern Tydides now he falls a prey, 
No friend to guard him in the dreadful day ! 
Breathless the good man fell, and by his side 
His faithful servant, old Calesius, died. 
By great Euryalus was Dresus slain, 









BOOK VI. 35 

And next he laid Opheltius on the plain. 

Two twins were near, bold, beautiful, and young, 

From a fair Naiad and Bucolion sprung 

(Laomedon's white flocks Bucolion fed, 

That monarch's first-born by a foreign bed ; 30 

In secret woods he won the Naiad's grace, 

And two fair infants crown' d his strong embrace) : 

Here dead they lay in all their youthful charms ; 

The ruthless victor stripped their shining arms. 

Astyalus by Polypoetes fell ; 
Ulysses' spear Pidytes sent to hell ; 
By Teucer's shaft brave Aretaon bled, 
And Nestor's son laid stern Ablerus dead ; 
Great Agamemnon, leader of the brave, 
The mortal wound of rich Elatus gave, 40 

Who held in Pedasus his proud abode, 
And till'd the banks where silver Satnio flow'd. 
Melanthius by Eurypylus was slain ; 
And Phylacus from Leitus flies in vain. 

Unbless'd Adrastus next at mercy lies 
Beneath the Spartan spear, a living prize. 
Scar'd with the din and tumult of the fight, 
His headlong steeds, precipitate in flight, 
Rush'd on a tamarisk's strong trunk, and broke 
The shatter'd chariot from the crooked yoke : 50 

Wide o'er the field, resistless as the wind, 



36 POPE'S ILIAD. 

For Troy they fly, and leave their lord behind. 
Prone on his face he sinks beside the wheel : 
Atrides o'er him shakes his vengeful steel ; 
The fallen chief in suppliant posture press'd 
The victor's knees, and thus his prayer addressed : 

" Oh, spare my youth, and for the life I owe 
Large gifts of price my father shall bestow : 
When fame shall tell that, not in battle slain, 
go Thy hollow ships his captive son detain, 
Rich heaps of brass shall in thy tent be told, 
And steel well-temper'd, and persuasive gold." 

He said : compassion touched the hero's heart. 
He stood suspended with the lifted dart : , 

As pity pleaded for his vanquish'd prize, 
Stern Agamemnon swift to vengeance flies, 
And furious thus : " impotent of mind ! 
Shall these, shall these Atrides' mercy find ? 
Well hast thou known proud Troy's perfidious land, 
70 And well her natives merit at thy hand ! 
Not one of all the race, nor sex, nor age, 
Shall save a Trojan from our boundless rage : 
Ilion shall perish whole, and bury all ; 
Her babes, her infants at the breast, shall fall, 
A dreadful lesson of exampled fate, 
To warn the nations, and to curb the great." 

The monarch spoke ; the words, with warmth ad- 
dress'd, 






BOOK VI. 37 

To rigid justice steel' d his brother's breast. 

Fierce from his knees the hapless chief he thrust ; 

The monarch's jav'lin stretch'd him in the dust. 50 

Then, pressing with his foot his panting heart, 

Forth from the slain he tugg'd the reeking dart. 

Old Nestor saw, and rous'd the warrior's rage : 

" Thus, heroes ! thus the vig'rous combat wage ! 

No son of Mars descend, for servile gains, 

To touch the booty, while a foe remains. 

Behold yon glitt'ring host, your future spoil ! 

First gain the conquest, then reward the toil." 

And now had Greece eternal fame acquir'd, 
And frighted Troy within her walls retir'd ; 90 

Had not sage Helenus her state redress'd, 
Taught by the gods that mov'd his sacred breast : 
Where Hector stood, with great iEneas join'd, 
The seer reveal' d the counsels of his mind : 

" Ye gen'rous chiefs ! on whom th' immortals lay 
The cares and glories of this doubtful day, 
On whom your aids, your country's hopes depend, 
Wise to consult, and active to defend ! 
Here, at our gates, your brave efforts unite, 
Turn back the routed, and forbid the flight; 100 

Ere yet their wives' soft arms the cowards gain, 
The sport and insult of the hostile train. 
When your commands have hearten'd every band, 



38 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Ourselves, here fix'd, will make the dangerous stand ; 
Press'd as we are, and sore of former fight, 
These straits demand our last remains of might. 
Meanwhile, thou, Hector, to the town retire, 
And teach our mother what the gods require : 
Direct the queen to lead th' assembled train 

no Of Troy's chief matrons to Minerva's fane ; 
Unbar the sacred gates, and seek the pow'r 
With offer'd vows, in Ilion's topmost tow'r. 
The largest mantle her rich wardrobes hold, 
Most priz'd for art, and labor'd o'er with gold, 
Before the goddess' honor'd knees be spread ; 
And twelve young heifers to her altars led. 
If so the pow'r aton'd by fervent pray'r, 
Our wives, our infants, and our city spare, 
And far avert Tydides' wasteful ire, 

120 That mows whole troops, and makes all Troy retire, 
Not thus Achilles taught our hosts to dread, 
Sprung tho' he was from more than mortal bed ; 
Not thus resistless rul'd the stream of fight, 
In rage unbounded, and unmatch'd in might." 
Hector obedient heard ; and, with a bound, 
Leap'd from his trembling chariot to the ground : 
Thro' all his host, inspiring force, he flies, 
And bids the thunder of the battle rise. 
With rage recruited the bold Trojans glow. 



BOOK VI. 39 

And turn the tide of conflict on the foe : 130 

Fierce in the front he shakes two dazzling spears ; 
All Greece recedes, and midst her triumph fears : 
Some god, they thought, who ruFd the fate of wars, 
Shot down avenging, from the vault of stars. 

Then thus, aloud : " Ye dauntless Dardans, hear ! 
And you whom distant nations send to war ! 
Be mindful of the strength your fathers bore; 
Be still yourselves and Hector asks no more. 
One hour demands me in the Trojan wall, 
To bid our altars flame, and victims fall : 140 

Nor shall, I trust, the matrons' holy train 
And rev'rend elders seek the gods in vain." 

This said, with ample strides the hero pass'd ; 
The shield's large orb behind his shoulder cast, 
His neck o'ershading, to his ankle hung ; 
And as he march' d the brazen buckler rung. 

Now paus'd the battle (godlike Hector gone), 
When daring Grlaucus and great Tydeus' son 
Between both armies met ; the chiefs from far 
Observed each other, and had marked for war. 150 

Near as they drew, Tydides thus began : 

u What art thou, boldest of the race of man ? 
Our eyes, till now, that aspect ne'er beheld, 
Where fame is reap'd amid th' embattl'd field ; 
Yet far before the troops thou dar'st appear, 



40 POPE'S ILIAD. 

And meet a lance the fiercest heroes fear. 
Unhappy they, and born of luckless sires, 
Who tempt our fury when Minerva fires ! 
But if from heav'n, celestial thou descend, 

160 Know, with immortals we no more contend. 
!STot long Lycurgus view'd the golden light, 
That daring man who mix'd with gods in fight : 
Bacchus, and Bacchus' votaries, he drove 
With brandished steel from Lyssa's sacred grove ; 
Their consecrated spears lay scatter' d round, 
With curling vines and twisted ivy bound ; 
While Bacchus headlong sought the briny flood, 
And Thetis' arms receiv'd the trembling god. 
Nor f aiPd the crime th' immortals' wrath to move 

170 (Th' immortals bless'd with endless ease above) ; 
Depriv'd of sight, by their avenging doom, 
Cheerless he breath' d, and wander'd in the gloom : 
Then sunk unpitied to the dire abodes, 
A wretch accus'd, and hated by the gods ! 
I brave not heav'n ; but if the fruits of earth 
Sustain thy life, and human be thy birth, 
Bold as thou art, too prodigal of breath, 
Approach, and enter the dark gates of death." 
"What, or from whence I am, or who my sire," 

180 Replied the chief, " can Tydeus' son enquire ? 
Like leaves on trees the race of man is found. 



BOOK VI. 41 

Now green in youth, now withering on the ground : 

Another race the following spring supplies, 

They fall successive, and successive rise : 

So generations in their course decay ; 

So flourish these, when those are pass'd away. 

But if thou still persist to search my birth, 

Then hear a tale that fills the spacious earth : 

" A city stands on Argos' utmost bound 
(Argos the fair, for warlike steeds renowned) ; 19c 

iEolian Sisyphus, with wisdom bless'd, 
In ancient time the happy walls possessed, 
Then called Ephyre : Glaucus was his son, 
Great Glaucus, father of Bellerophon, 
Who o'er the sons of men in beauty shin'd, 
Lov'd for that valor which preserves mankind. 
Then mighty Proetus Argos' sceptre sway'd, 
Whose hard commands Bellerophon obey'd. 
With direful jealousy the monarch rag'd, 
And the brave prince in numerous toils engag'd. 20c 

For him, Antea burn'd with lawless flame, 
And strove to tempt him from the paths of fame : 
In vain she tempted the relentless youth, 
Endu'd with wisdom, sacred fear, and truth. 
Fir'd at his scorn, the queen to Proetus fled, 
And begg'd revenge for her insulted bed : 
Incens'd he heard, resolving on his fate 5 



42 POPE'S ILIAD. 

But hospitable laws restrained his hate : 
To Lycia the devoted youth he sent, 

210 With tablets seal'd, that told his dire intent. 

Now, bless'd by ev'ry pow'r who guards the good, 
The chief arriv'd at Xanthus' silver flood : 
There Lycia's monarch paid him honors due : 
Nine days he feasted, and nine bulls he slew. 
But when the tenth bright morning orient glow'd, 
The faithful youth his monarch's mandate showed : 
The fatal tablets, till that instant seal'd, 
The deathful secret to the king reveaPd. 
First, dire Chim sera's conquest was enjoin' d : 

220 A mingled monster, of no mortal kind ; 
Behind, a dragon's fiery tail was spread ; 
A goat's rough body bore a lion's head ; 
Her pitchy nostrils flaky flames expire ; 
Her gaping throat emits infernal fire. 

" This pest he slaughter'd (for he read the skies, 
And trusted heav'n informing prodigies) ; 
Then met in arms the Solymsean crew 
(Fiercest of men), and those the warrior slew. 
Next the bold Amazons' whole force defied ; 

230 And conquer'd still, for heav'n was on his side. 
" Nor ended here his toils : his Lycian foes, 
At his return, a treach'rous ambush rose, 
With levell'd spears along the winding shore ; 






BOOK VI. 4b 

There fell they breathless, and returned no more. 
" At length the monarch with repentant grief 
Confessed the gods, and god-descended chief ; 
His daughter gave, the stranger to detain, 
With half the honors of his ample reign. 
The Lycians grant a chosen space of ground, 
With woods, with vineyards, and with harvests 240 

crown'd. 
There long the chief his happy lot possessed, 
With two brave sons and one fair daughter bless'd 
(Fair ev ? n in heavenly eyes ; her fruitful love 
Crown' d with Sarpedon's birth th' embrace of Jove). 
But when at last, distracted in his mind, 
Forsook by heav'n, forsaking human kind, 
Wide o'er th ? Aleian field he chose to stray, 
A long, forlorn, uncomfortable way ! 
Woes heap'd on woes consumed his wasted heart ; 
His beauteous daughter fell by Phoebe's dart ; 250 

His eldest-born by raging Mars was slain 
In combat on the Solymaean plain. 
Hippolochus survived ; from him I came, 
The honor'd author of my birth and name ; 
By his decree I sought the Trojan town, 
By his instructions learn to win renown ; 
To stand the first in worth as in command, 
To add new honors to my native land ; 



44 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Before my eyes my mighty sires to place, 

260 And emulate tlie glories of our race." 

He spoke, and transport filPd Tydides' heart ; 
In earth the generous warrior fix'd his dart ; 
Then friendly, thus, the Lycian prince addressed : 
" Welcome, my brave hereditary guest ! 
Thus ever let us meet with kind embrace, 
Nor stain the sacred friendship of our race. 
Know, chief, our grandsires have been guests of old, 
(Eneus the strong, Bellerophon the bold ; 
Our ancient seat his honored presence grac'd, 

270 Where twenty days in genial rites he pass'd. 
The parting heroes mutual presents left : 
A golden goblet was thy grandsire's gift ; 
(Eneus a belt of matchless work bestow'd, 
That rich with Tyrian dye refulgent glow'd 
(This from his pledge I learn'd, which, safely stored 
Among my treasures, still adorns my board : 
For Tydeus left me young, when Thebe's wall 
Beheld the sons of Greece untimely fall). 
Mindful of this, in friendship let us join; 

280 If heav'n our steps to foreign lands incline, 
My guest in Argos thou, and I in Lycia thine. 
Enough of Trojans to this lance shall yield, 
In the full harvest of yon ample field ; 
Enough of Greeks shall dye thy spear with gore ; 









BOOK VI. 45 

But thou and Diomed be foes no more. 

Now change we arms ? and prove to either host * 

We guard the friendship of the line we boast. " 

Thus having said, the gallant chiefs alight ; 
Their hands they join, their mutual faith they plight; 
Brave Glaucus then each narrow thought resigned 290 

(Jove warm'd his bosom and enlarged his mind) ; 
For Diomed' s brass arms, of mean device, 
For which nine oxen paid (a vulgar price), 
He gave his own, of gold divinely wrought ; 
A hundred beeves the shining purchase bought. 

Meantime the guardian of the Trojan state, 
Great Hector, entered at the Scaean gate. 
Beneath the beech-trees' consecrated shades,. 
The Trojan matrons and the Trojan maids 
Around him flock'd, all pressed with pious care 300 

For husbands, brothers, sons, engaged in war. 
He bids the train in long procession go, 
And seek the gods, t' avert th' impending woe. 
And now to Priam's stately courts he came, 
Rais'd on arch'd columns of stupendous frame ; 
O'er these a range of marble structure runs ; 
The rich pavilions of his fifty sons, 
In fifty chambers lodged : and rooms of state 
Oppos'd to those, where Priam's daughters sate : 
Twelve domes for them and their lov'd spouses shone, - 



46 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Of equal beauty, and of polish' d stone. 
Hither great Hector pass'd, nor pass'd unseen 
Of royal Hecuba, his mother queen 
(With her Laodice, whose beauteous face 
Surpassed the nymphs of Troy's illustrious race). 
Long in a strict embrace she held her son, 
And pressed his hand, and tender thus begun : 
" Hector ! say, what great occasion calls 
My son from fight, when Greece surrounds our walls ? 

320 Com'st thou to supplicate th' almighty pow'r, 
With lifted hands from Ilion's lofty tow'r ? 
Stay, till I bring the cup with Bacchus crown'd, 
In Jove's high name, to sprinkle on the ground, 
And pay due vows to all the gods around. 
Then with a plenteous draught refresh thy soul, 
And draw new spirits from the gen'rous bowl ; 
Spent as thou art with long laborious fight, 
The brave defender of thy country's right." 

"Far hence be Bacchus' gifts," the chief rejoin'd; 

330 " Inflaming wine, pernicious to mankind, 

Unnerves the limbs, and dulls the noble mind. 

Let chiefs abstain, and spare the sacred juice 

To sprinkle to the gods, its better use. 

By me that holy office were prof an'd ; 

111 fits it me, with human gore distain'd, 

To the pure skies these horrid hands to raise 



BOOK VI. 47 

Or offer heav'n's great sire polluted praise. 

You, with your matrons, go, a spotless train ! 

And burn rich odors in Minerva's fane. 

The largest mantle your full wardrobes hold, 340 

Most priz'd for art, and labored o'er with gold, 

Before the goddess' honored knees be spread, 

And twelve young heifers to her altar led. 

So may the pow'r, aton'd by fervent pray'r, 

Our wives, our infants, and our city spare, 

And far avert Tydides* wasteful ire, 

Who mows whole troops, and makes all Troy retire. 

Be this, mother, your religious care; 

I go to rouse soft Paris to the war ; 

If yet, not lost to all the sense of shame, 350 

The recreant warrior hear the voice of fame. 

Oh would kind earth the hateful wretch embrace, 

That pest of Troy, that ruin of our race ! 

Deep to the dark abyss might he descend, 

Troy yet should flourish, and my sorrows end." 

This heard, she gave command; and summoned came 
Each noble matron and illustrious dame. 
The Phrygian queen to her rich wardrobe went, 
Where treasured odors breathed a costly scent. 
There lay the vestures of no vulgar art, 360 

Sidonian maids embroidered ev'ry part, 
Whom from soft Sidon youthful Paris bore, 



48 POPE'S ILIAD. 

With Helen touching on the Tyrian shore. 
Here as the queen revolv'd with careful eyes 
The various textures and the various dyes, 
She chose a veil that shone superior far, 
And glow'd refulgent as the morning star. 
Herself with this the long procession leads 5 
The train majestically slow proceeds. 

370 Soon as to Ilion's topmost tow'r they come, 
And awful reach the high Palladian dome, 
Antenor's consort, fair Theano, waits 
As Pallas' priestess, and unbars the gates. 
With hands uplifted, and imploring eyes, 
They fill the dome with supplicating cries. 
The priestess then the shining veil displays, 
Plac'd on Minerva's knees, and thus she prays : 

" awful goddess ! ever-dreadful maid, 
Troy's strong defence, unconquer'd Pallas, aid ! 

380 Break thou Tydides' spear, and let him fall 
Prone on the dust before the Trojan wall. 
So twelve young heifers, guiltless of the yoke, 
Shall fill thy temple with a grateful smoke. 
But thou, aton'd by penitence and pray'r, 
Ourselves, our infants, and our city spare ! " 
So pray'd the priestess in her holy fane 5 

(/ So vowed the matrons, but they vow'd in vain. 

While these appear before the pow'r with pray'rs. 



BOOK VI. 49 

Hector to Paris' lofty dome repairs. 

Himself the mansion rais'd, from ev'ry part 390 

Assembling architects of matchless art. 

Near Priam's court and Hector's palace stands 

The pompous structure, and the town commands. 

A spear the hero bore of wond'rous strength, 

Of full ten cubits was the lance's length ; 

The steely point with golden ringlet join'd, 

Before him brandish'd, at each motion shin'd. 

Thus ent'ring, in the glitt'ring rooms he found 

His brother-chief, whose useless arms lay round, 

His eyes delighting with their splendid show, 400 

Bright'ning the shield, and polishing the bow. 

Beside him Helen with her virgins stands, 

Guides their rich labors, and instructs their hands. 

Him thus unactive, with an ardent look 
The prince beheld, and high-resenting spoke : 
" Thy hate to Troy is this the time to show 
(0 wretch ill-fated, and thy country's foe) ? 
Paris and Greece against us both conspire, 
Thy close resentment, and their vengeful ire ; 
For thee great Ilion's guardian heroes fall, 410 

Till heaps of dead alone defend her wall ; 
For thee the soldier bleeds, the matron mourns, 
And wasteful war in all its fury burns. 
Ungrateful man ! deserves not this thy care, 



50 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Our troops to hearten, and our toils to share ? 
Rise, or behold the conquering flames ascend, 
And all the Phrygian glories at an end." 

" Brother, 'tis just," replied the beauteous youth, 
u Thy free remonstrance proves thy worth and truth : 

420 Yet charge my absence less, gen'rous chief ! 
On hate to Troy, than conscious shame and grief : 
Here, hid from human eyes, thy brother sate, 
And mourned in secret his and Ilion's fate. 
'Tis now enough : now glory spreads her charms, 
And beauteous Helen calls her chief to arms. 
Conquest to-day my happier sword may bless, 
'Tis man's to fight, but heav'n's to give success. 
But while I arm, contain thy ardent mind ; 
Or go, and Paris shall not lag behind." 

430 He said, nor answer'd Priam's warlike son; 
When Helen thus with lowly grace begun : 
" gen'rous brother ! if the guilty dame 
That caus'd these woes deserve a sister's name ! 
Would heav'n, ere all these dreadful deeds were done, 
The day that show'd me to the golden sun 
Had seen my death ! Why did not whirlwinds bear 
The fatal infant to the fowls of air? 
Why sunk I not beneath the whelming tide, 
And midst the roarings of the waters died ? 

440 Heav'n filPd up all my ills, and I accurs'd 



BOOK VI. 51 

Bore all, and Paris of those ills the worst. 
Helen at least a braver spouse might claim, 
Warmed with some virtue, some regard of fame ! 
Now, tir'd with toils, thy fainting limbs recline, 
With toils sustained for Paris' sake and mine : 
The gods have linked our miserable doom, 
Our present woe and infamy to come : 
Wide shall it spread, and last thro' ages long, 
Example sad ! and theme of future song." 

The chief replied : " This time forbids to rest : 450 

The Trojan bands, by hostile fury pressed, 
Demand their Hector, and his arm require ; 
The combat urges, and my soul's on fire. 
Urge thou thy knight to march where glory calls, 
And timely join me, ere I leave the walls. 
Ere yet I mingle in the direful fray, 
My wife, my infant, claim a moment's stay : 
This day (perhaps the last that sees me here) 
Demands a parting word, a tender tear : 
This day some god, who hates our Trojan land, 460 

May vanquish Hector by a Grecian hand." 

He said, and pass'd with sad-presaging heart, 
To seek his spouse, his soul's far dearer part ; 
At home he sought her, but he sought in vain : 
She, with one maid of all her menial train, 
Had thence retir'd ; and with her second joy, 



52 POPE'S ILIAD. 

The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy, 
Pensive she stood on Ilion's tow'ry height, 
Beheld the war, and sicken' d at the sight ; 

470 There her sad eyes in vain her lord explore, 
Or weep the wounds her bleeding country bore. 
But he who found not whom his soul desir'd, 
Whose virtue charm'd him as her beauty fir'd, 
Stood in the gates, and ask'd what way she bent 
Her parting step ; if to the fane she went, 
Where late the mourning matrons made resort ; 
Or sought her sisters in the Trojan court. 
" Not to the court/' replied th' attendant train, 
" Nor, mix'd with matrons, to Minerva's fane : 

480 To Ilion's steepy tow'r she bent her way, 
To mark the fortunes of the doubtful day. 
Troy fled, she heard, before the Grecian sword : 
She heard, and trembled for her distant lord : 
Distracted with surprise, she seem'd to fly, 
Fear on her cheek, and sorrow in her eye. 
The nurse attended with her infant boy, 
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy." 
Hector, this heard, returned without delay ; 
Swift thro' the town he trod his former way, 

490 Thro' streets of palaces and walks of state ; 
And met the mourner at the Scaean gate. 
With haste to meet him sprung the joyful fair, 



BOOK VI. 53 

His blameless wife, Eetion's wealthy heir 

(Cilician Thebe great Eetion swayed, 

And Hippoplacus' wide-extended shade) : 

The nurse stood near, in whose embraces press'd, 

His only hope hung smiling at her breast, 

Whom each soft charm and early grace adorn, 

Fair as the new-born star that gilds the morn. 

To this lov'd infant Hector gave the name - 500 

Scamandrius, from Scamander's honored stream : 

Astyanax the Trojans call'd the boy, 

From his great father, the defence of Troy. 

Silent the warrior smiPd, and, pleas'd, resigned 

To tender passions all his mighty mind : 

His beauteous princess cast a mournful look, 

Hung on his hand, and then dejected spoke; 

Her bosom labor' d with a boding sigh, 

And the big tear stood trembling in her eye. 

" Too daring prince ! ah whither dost thou run ? 510 

Ah too forgetful of thy wife and son ! 

And think' st thou not how wretched we shall be, 

A widow I, a helpless orphan he ! 

For sure such courage length of life denies, 

And thou must fall, thy virtue's sacrifice. 

Greece in her single heroes strove in vain ; 

Now hosts oppose thee, and thou must be slain ! 

Oh grant me, gods ! ere Hector meets his doom, 



54 POPE'S ILIAD, 

All I can ask of heav'n an early tomb ! 

520 So shall my days in one sad tenor run, 
And end with sorrows as they first begun. 
No parent now remains, my griefs to share, 
No father's aid, no mother'^ tender care. 
The fierce Achilles wrapt our walls in fire, 
Laid Thebe waste, and slew my warlike sire ! 
His fate compassion in the victor bred ; 
Stern as he was, he yet rever'd the dead, 
His radiant arms preserved from hostile spoil, 
And laid him decent on the fun'ral pile ; 

530 Then rais'd a mountain where his bones were burn'd ; 
The mountain nymphs the rural tomb adorn'd ; 
Jove's sylvan daughters bade their elms bestow 
A barren shade, and in his honor grow. 

" By the same arm my sev'n brave brothers fell ; 
In one sad day beheld the gates of hell ; 
While the fat herds and snowy flocks they fed, 
Amid their fields the hapless heroes bled ! 
My mother liv'd to bear the victor's bands, 
The queen of Hippoplacia's sylvan lands : 

540 Redeemed too late, she scarce beheld again 
Her pleasing empire and her native plain, 
When, ah ! oppressed by life-consuming woe, 
She fell a victim to Diana's bow. 

" Yet while my Hector still survives, I see 



BOOK VI. 55 

My father, mother, brethren, all, in thee : 

Alas ! my parents, brothers, kindred, all, 

Once more will perish if my Hector fall. 

Thy wife, thy infant, in thy danger share : 

Oh prove a husband's and a father's care ! 

That quarter most the skilful Greeks annoy, 550 

Where yon wild fig-trees join the wall of Troy : 

Thou, from this tow'r defend th' important post ; 

There Agamemnon points his dreadful host, 

That pass Tydides, Ajax, strive to gain, 

And there the vengeful Spartan fires his train. 

Thrice our bold foes the fierce attack have giv'n, 

Or led by hopes, or dictated from heav'n. 

Let others in the field their arms employ, 

But stay my Hector here, and guard his Troy." 

The chief replied : "That post shall be my care, 560 
ISTor that alone, but all the works of war. 
How would the sons of Troy, in arms renown'd, 
And Troy's proud dames, whose garments sweep the 

ground, 
Attaint the lustre of my former name, 
Should Hector basely quit the field of fame ? 
My early youth was bred to martial pains, 
My soul impels me to th' embattl'd plains : 
Let me be foremost to defend the throne, 
And guard my father's glories, and my own. 



56 POPE'S ILIAD. 

570 Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates 

(How my heart trembles while my tongue relates !) ; 
The day when thou, imperial Troy ! must bend, 
And see thy warriors fall, thy glories end. 
And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind, 
My mother's death, the ruin of my kind, 
Not Priam's hoary hairs defiTd with gore, 
Not all my brothers gasping on the shore ; 
As thine, Andromache ! thy griefs I dread : 
I see thee trembling, weeping, captive led ! 

580 In Argive looms our battles to design, 

And woes of which so large a part was thine ! 
To bear the victor's hard commands, or bring 
The weight of waters from Hyperia's spring. 
There, while you groan beneath the load of life, 
They cry, ' Behold the mighty Hector's wife ! ' 
Some haughty Greek, who lives thy tears to see, 
Embitters all thy woes by naming me. 
The thoughts of glory past, and present shame, 
A thousand griefs, shall waken at the name ! 

590 May I lie cold before that dreadful day, 
Press'd with a load of monumental clay ! 
Thy Hector, wrapp'd in everlasting sleep, 
Shall neither hear thee sigh, nor see thee weep." 

Thus having spoke, th' illustrious chief of Troy 
Stretch' d his fond arms to clasp the lovely boy. 



BOOK VI. 57 

The babe clung crying to his nurse's breast, 

Scar'd at the dazzling helm, and nodding crest. 

With secret pleasure each fond parent smiled, 

And Hector hastened to relieve his child ; 

The glittering terrors from his brows unbound, 600 

And placed the beaming helmet on the ground. 

Then kiss'd the child, and, lifting high in air, 

Thus to the gods preferred a father's pray'r : 

" thou whose glory fills th' ethereal throne, 
And all ye deathless powers ! protect my son ! 
Grant him, like me, to purchase just renown, 
To guard the Trojans, to defend the crown, 
Against his country's foes the war to wage, 
And rise the Hector of the future age ! 
So when, triumphant from successful toils, 6io 

Of heroes slain he bears the reeking spoils, 
Whole hosts may hail him with deserv'd acclaim, 
And say, 'This chief transcends his father's fame'; 
While pleas'd, amidst the gen'ral shouts of Troy, 
His mother's conscious heart o'erflows with joy." 

He spoke, and fondly gazing on her charms, 
Eestor'd the pleasing burthen to her arms ; 
Soft on her fragrant breast the babe she laid, 
Hush'd to repose, and with a smile survey'd. 
The troubled pleasure soon chastis'd by fear, 620 

She mingled with the smile a tender tear. 



58 POPE'S ILIAD. 

The soften'd chief with kind compassion view'd, 
And dried the falling drops, and thus pursu'd : ■ 

" Andromache ! my souPs far better part, 
Why with untimely sorrows heaves thy heart ? 
No hostile hand can antedate my doom, 
Till fate condemns me to the silent tomb. 
Fix'd is the term to all the race of earth, 
And such the hard condition of our birth. 

630 No force can then resist, no flight can save ; 
All sink alike, the fearful and the brave. 
No more — but hasten to thy tasks at home, 
There guide the spindle, and direct the loom : 
Me glory summons to the martial scene ; 
The field of combat is the sphere for "men. 
Where heroes war, the foremost place I claim, 
The first in danger as the first in fame." 

Thus having said, the glorious chief resumes 
His tow'ring helmet, black with shading plumes. 

640 His princess parts with a prophetic sigh, 
Unwilling parts, and oft reverts her eye, 
That streamed at ev'ry look : then, moving slow, 
Sought her own palace, and indulged her woe. 
There, while her tears deplor'd the godlike man, 
Thro ? all her train the soft infection ran ; 
The pious maids their mingled sorrows shed, 
And mourn the living Hector as the dead. 



BOOK VI. 59 

But now, no longer deaf to honor's call, 
Forth issues Paris from the palace wall. 
In brazen arms that cast a gleamy ray, 650 

Swift thro' the town the warrior bends his way. 
The wanton courser thus, with reins unbound, 
Breaks from his stall, and beats the trembling ground ; 
Pamper'd and proud he seeks the wonted tides, 
And laves, in height of blood, his shining sides : 
His head now freed he tosses to the skies ; 
His mane dishevelPd o'er his shoulder flies ; 
He snuffs the females in the distant plain, 
And springs, exulting, to his fields again. 
With equal triumph, sprightly, bold, and gay, 660 

In arms refulgent as the god of day, 
The son of Priam, glorying in his might, 
Rush'd forth with Hector to the fields of fight. 
And now the warriors passing on the way, 
The graceful Paris first excus'd his stay. 
To whom the noble Hector thus replied : 
" chief ! in blood, and now in arms, allied ! 
Thy pow'r in war with justice none contest ; 
Known is thy courage, and thy strength confessed. 
What pity, sloth should seize a soul so brave, 670 

Or godlike Paris live a woman's slave ! 
My heart weeps blood at what the Trojans say, 
And hopes thy deed shall wipe the stain away. 



60 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Haste then, in all their glorious labors share ; 
For much they suffer, for thy sake, in war. 
These ills shall cease, whene'er by Jove's decree 
We crown the bowl to Heav'n and Liberty : 
While the proud foe his frustrate triumphs mourns, 
And Greece indignant thro' her seas returns.' 1 



BOOK XXII. 61 



BOOK XXII. 



THE DEATH OF HECTOR. 



The Trojans being safe within the walls, Hector only- 
stays to oppose Achilles. Priam is struck at his approach, 
and tries to persuade his son to re-enter the town. Hecuba 
joins her entreaties, but in vain. Hector consults within 
himself what measures to take; but, at the advance of 
Achilles, his resolution fails him, and he flies ; Achilles pur- 
sues him thrice round the walls of Troy. The gods debate 
concerning the fate of Hector; at length Minerva descends 
to the aid of Achilles. She deludes Hector in the shape of 
Deiphobus; he stands the combat and is slain. Achilles 
drags the dead body at his chariot, in the sight of Priam 

1 The books between the sixth and twenty-first, — the last the most sub- 
lime, perhaps, in the poem, — deal with the disasters of the Greeks in war, 
their embassy to Achilles, and his refusal at first to aid them. At 
length, when the Trojans are already setting fire to the Greek camp, he 
permits Patroclus, clad in his (Achilles^ armor, to lead the Myrmidons 
forth to battle. Patroclus, after a heroic onset, is slain, and Achilles, 
determined to avenge his friend, returns to the war in armor forged for 
him by Vulcan. The Trojans, defeated in the ensuing battle, retreat to 
their city, and close the gates. This they are enabled to do, because 
Achilles has been drawn away from the field of battle by Apollo, who 
has assumed the form of the Trojan Agenor. 



62 POPE'S ILIAD. 

and Hecuba. Their lamentations, tears, and despair. Their 
cries reach the ears of Andromache, "who, ignorant of this, 
was retired into the inner part of the palace ; she mounts up 
to the walls, and beholds her dead husband. She swoons 
at the spectacle. Her excess of grief and lamentation. 

The thirtieth day still continues. The scene lies under 
the walls and on the battlements of Troy. 

Thus to their bulwarks, smit with panic fear, 
The herded Ilians rush like driven deer ; 
There safe, they wipe the briny drops away, 
And drown in bowls the labors of the day. 
Close to the walls, advancing o'er the fields, 
Beneath one roof of well-compacted shields, 
March, bending on, the Greeks' embodied pow'rs, 
Far-stretching in the shade of Trojan tow'rs. 
Great Hector singly stay'd ; chain'd down by fate, 
10 There fix'd he stood before the Scsean gate ; 
Still his bold arms determin'd to employ, 
The guardian still of long-defended Troy. 

Apollo now to tir'd Achilles turns 
(The pow'r confess'd in all his glory burns), 
" And what," he cries, " has Peleus' son in view, 
With mortal speed a godhead to pursue ? 
For not to thee to know the gods is giv'n, 
Unskill'd to trace the latent marks of heav'n. 
What boots thee now that Troy forsook the plain ? 



BOOK XXII. 63 

Vain thy past labor, and thy present vain : 20 

Safe in their walls are now her troops bestow'd, 
While here thy frantic rage attacks a god." 

The chief incens'd : " Too partial god of day ! 
To check my conquests in the middle way : 
How few in Ilion else had refuge found ! 
What gasping numbers now had bit the ground ! 
Thou robb'st me of a glory justly mine, 
Powerful of godhead, and of fraud divine : 
Mean fame, alas ! for one of heav'nly strain, 
To cheat a mortal who repines in vain." 30 

Then to the city, terrible and strong, 
With high and haughty steps he tower' d along : 
So the proud courser, victor of the prize, 
To the near goal with double ardor flies. 
Him, as he blazing shot across the field, 
The careful eyes of Priam first beheld. 
Not half so dreadful rises to the sight, 
Thro' the thick gloom of some tempestuous night, 
Orion's dog (the year when autumn weighs), 
And o'er the feebler stars exerts his rays ; 40 

Terrific glory ! for his burning breath 
Taints the red air with fevers, plagues, and death. 
So flam'd his fiery mail. Then wept the sage; 
He strikes his rev'rend head, now white with age 
He lifts his withered arms ; obtests the skies ; 



64 POPE'S ILIAD. 

He calls his much-lov'd son with feeble cries. 
The son, resolv'd Achilles' force to dare, 
Full at the Scaean gate expects the war : 
While the sad father on the rampart stands, 

50 And thus adjures him with extended hands : 

" Ah stay not, stay not ! guardless and alone ; 
Hector, my lov'd, my dearest, bravest son! 
Methinks already I behold thee slain, 
And stretched beneath that fury of the plain. 
Implacable Achilles ! might' st thou be 
To all the gods no dearer than to me ! 
Thee vultures wild should scatter round the shore, 
And bloody dogs grow fiercer from thy gore ! 
How many valiant sons I late enjoy 'd, 

go Valiant in vain ! by thy curs'd arm destroy'd : 
Or, worse than slaughtered, sold in distant isles 
To shameful bondage and unworthy toils. 
Two, while I speak, my eyes in vain explore, 
Two from one mother sprung, my Polydore 
And lov'd Lycaon ; now perhaps no more ! 
Oh ! if in yonder hostile camp they live, 
What heaps of gold, what treasures would I give 
(Their grandsire's wealth, by right of birth their own, 
Consigned his daughter with Lelegia's throne) : 

70 But if (which heav'n forbid) already lost, 
All pale they wander on the Stygian coast, 



BOOK XXII. 65 

What sorrows then must their sad mother know, 

What anguish I ! unutterable woe ! 

Yet less that anguish, less to her, to me, 

Less to all Troy, if not deprived of thee. 

Yet shun Achilles ! enter yet the wall ; 

And spare thyself, thy father, spare us all ! 

Save thy dear life : or if a soul so brave 

Neglect that thought, thy dearer glory save. 

Pity, while yet I live, these silver hairs ; 80 

While yet thy father feels the woes he bears, 

Yet curs'd with sense ! a wretch, whom in his rage 

(All trembling on the verge of helpless age) 

Great Jove has plac'd, sad spectacle of pain ! 

The bitter dregs of fortune's cup to drain : 

To fill with scenes of death his closing eyes, 

And number all his days by miseries ! 

My heroes slain, my bridal bed o'erturn'd, 

My daughters ravish'd, and my city burn'd, 

My bleeding infants dash'd against the floor ; 90 

These I have yet to see, perhaps yet more ! 

Perhaps ev'n I, reserved by angry fate 

The last sad relic of my ruin'd state 

(Dire pomp of sovereign wretchedness !), must fall 

And stain the pavement of my regal hall ; 

Where famish' d dogs, late guardians of my door, 

Shall lick their mangled master's spatter'd gore. 



66 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Yet for my sons I thank ye, gods 1 'twas well : 
Well that they perish'd, for in fight they fell. 

100 Who dies in youth and vigor, dies the best, 

Struck thro' with wounds, all honest on the breast. 

But when the fates, in fulness of their rage, 

Spurn the hoar head of unresisting age, 

In dust the rev'rend lineaments deform, 

And pour to dogs the life-blood scarcely warm ; 

This, this is misery ! the last, the worst, 

That man can feel : man, fated to be curs'd ! " 

He said, and acting what no words could say, 
Eent from his head the silver locks away. 

no With him the mournful mother bears a part : 
Yet all their sorrows turn not Hector's heart : 
The zone unbrac'd, her bosom she display'd ; 
And thus, fast-falling the salt tears, she said : 

" Have mercy on me, my son ! revere 
The words of age ; attend a parent's pray'r ! 
If ever thee in these fond arms I press'd, 
Or still'd thy infant clamors at this breast ; 
Ah ! do not thus our helpless years forego, 
But, by our walls secur'd, repel the foe. 

120 Against his rage if singly thou proceed, 

Shouldst thou (but heav'n avert it ! ), shouldst thou 

bleed, 
Nor must thy corse lie honor'd on the bier, 



BOOK XXII. 67 

ISTor spouse, nor mother, grace thee with a tear ; 
Far from our pious rites, those dear remains 
Must feast the vultures on the naked plains." 

So they, while down their cheeks the torrents roll : 
But fix'd remains the purpose of his soul ; 
Resolv'd he stands, and with a fiery glance 
Expects the hero's terrible advance. 

So, roll'd up in his den, the swelling snake 130 

Beholds the traveller approach the brake ; 
When, fed with noxious herbs, his turgid veins 
Have gathered half the poisons of the plains ; 
He burns, he stiffens with collected ire, 
And his red eyeballs glare with living fire. 
Beneath a turret, on his shield reclined, 
He stood, and questioned thus his mighty mind : 

" Where lies my way ? To enter in the wall ? 
Honor and shame th' ungen'rous thought recall : 
Shall proud Polydamas before the gate 140 

Proclaim his counsels are obeyed too late, 
Which timely followed but the former night, 
What numbers had been sav'd by Hector's flight ? 
That wise advice rejected with disdain, 
I feel my folly in my people slain. 
Methinks my suffering country's voice I hear; 
But most, her worthless sons insult my ear, 
On my rash courage charge the chance of war, 



68 POPE'S ILIAD. 

And blame those virtues which they cannot share. 

150 No — if I e'er return, return I must 

Glorious, my country's terror laid in dust : 

Or if I perish, let her see me fall 

In field at least, and fighting for her wall. 

And yet suppose these measures I forego, 

Approach unarm 'd, and parley with the foe, 

The warrior-shie]d, the helm, and lance lay down, 

And treat on terms of peace to save the town : 

The wife withheld, the treasure ill-detain'd 

(Cause of the war, and grievance of the land), 

160 With honorable justice to restore ; 

And add half Ilion's yet remaining store, 

Which Troy shall, sworn, produce; that injured Greece 

May share our wealth, and leave our walls in peace. 

But why this thought ? Unarmed if I should go, 

What hope of mercy from this vengeful foe, 

But woman-like to fall, and fall without a blow ? 

We greet not here as man conversing man, 

Met at an oak or journeying o'er a plain; 

No season now for calm, familiar talk, 

170 Like youths and maidens in an ev'ning walk : 
War is our business, but to whom is giv'n 
To die or triumph, that determine heav'n ! " 

Thus pond'ring, like a god the Greek drew nigh : 
His dreadful plumage nodded from on high ; 



BOOK XXII. 69 

The Pelian jav'lin, in his better hand, 

Shot trembling rays that glitter' d o'er the land ; 

And on his breast the beamy splendors shone 

Like Jove's own lightning, or the rising sun. 

As Hector sees, unusual terrors rise, 

Struck by some god, he fears, recedes, and flies : 180 

He leaves the gates, he leaves the walls behind ; 

Achilles follows like the winged wind. 

Thus at the panting dove the falcon flies 

(The swiftest racer of the liquid skies); 

Just when he holds, or thinks he holds, his prey, 

Obliquely wheeling thro' th' aerial way, 

With open beak and shrilling cries he springs, 

And aims his claws, and shoots upon his wings : 

No less fore-right the rapid chase they held, 

One urg'd hj fury, one by fear impell'd ; 190 

Now circling round the walls their course maintain, 

Where the high watch-tow' r overlooks the plain ; 

Now where the fig-trees spread their umbrage broad 

(A wider compass), smoke along the road. 

Next by Scamander's double source they bound, 

Where two fam'd fountains burst the parted ground : 

This hot thro' scorching clefts is seen to rise, 

With exhalations steaming to the skies ; 

That the green banks in summer's heat o'erflows, 

Like crystal clear, and cold as winter snows. 200 



70 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Each gushing fount a marble cistern fills, 
Whose polish' d bed receives the falling rills ; 
Where Trojan dames (ere yet alarm'd by Greece) 
Wash'd their fair garments in the days of peace. 
By these they passed, one chasing, one in flight 
(The mighty fled, pursu'd by stronger might); 
Swift was the course ; no vulgar prize they play, 
No vulgar victim must reward the day 
(Such as in races crown the speedy strife): 

210 The prize contended was great Hector's life. 
As when some hero's fun'rals are decreed, 
In grateful honor of the mighty dead; 
Where high rewards the vigorous youth inflame 
(Some golden tripod, or some lovely dame), 
The panting coursers swiftly turn the goal, 
And with them turns the rais'd spectator's soul : 
Thus three times round the Trojan wall they fly ; 
The gazing gods lean forward from the sky : 
To whom, while eager on th$ chase they look, 

220 The sire of mortals and immortals spoke ; 

" Unworthy sight ! the man belov'd of heav'n, 
Behold, inglorious round yon city driv'n ! 
My heart partakes the gen'rous Hector's pain ; 
Hector, whose zeal whole hecatombs has slain, 
Whose grateful fumes the gods receiv'd with joy, 
From Ida's summits and the tow'rs of Troy : 



BOOK XXII. 71 

Now see him flying! to his fears resign'd, 

And Fate and fierce Achilles close behind. 

Consult, ye powers ('tis worthy your debate), 

Whether to snatch him from impending fate, 230 

Or let him bear, by stern Pelides slain 

(Good as he is), the lot impos'd on man ? " 

Then Pallas thus : " Shall he whose vengeance 
forms 
The forky bolt, and blackens heav'n with storms, 
Shall he prolong one Trojan's forfeit breath! 
A man, a mortal, pre-ordain' d to death ! 
And will no murmurs fill the courts above ? 
No gods indignant blame their partial Jove ? " 

" Go then/' returned the sire, " without delay ; 
Exert thy will : I give the fates their way." 240 

Swift at the mandate p>leas'd Tritonia flies, 
And stoops impetuous from the cleaving skies. 

As thro' the forest, o'er the vale and lawn, 
The well-breath' d beagle drives the flying fawn 5 
In vain he tries the covert of the brakes, 
Or deep beneath the trembling thicket shakes : 
Sure of the vapor in the tainted dews, 
The certain hound his various maze pursues : 
Thus step by step, where'er the Trojan wheel' d, 
There swift Achilles compass'd round the field. 2: 

Oft as to reach the Dardan gates he bends, 



72 POPE'S ILIAD. 

And hopes th' assistance of his pitying friends 
(Whose show'ring arrows, as he cours'd below, 
From the high turrets might oppress the foe), 
So oft Achilles turns him to the plain : 
He eyes the city, but he eyes in vain. 
As men in slumbers seem with speedy pace 
One to pursue, and one to lead the chase, 
Their sinking limbs the fancied course forsake, 

260 Nor this can fly, nor that can overtake : 
No less the laboring heroes pant and strain ; 
While that but flies, and this pursues, in vain. 
What god, Muse ! assisted Hector's force, 
With fate itself so long to hold the course ! 
Phoebus it was : who, in his latest hour, 
Endu'd his knees with strength, his nerves with 

pow'r. 
And great Achilles, lest some Greek's advance 
Should snatch the glory from his lifted lance, 
Sign'd to the troops, to yield his foe the way, 

270 And leave untouch' d the honors of the day. 
Jove lifts the golden balances, that show 
The fates of mortal men and things below : 
Here each contending hero's lot he tries, 
And weighs, with equal hand, their destinies. 
Low sinks the scale surcharged with Hector's fate ; 
Heavy with death it sinks, and hell receives the 
weight. 



BOOK XXII. 73 

Then Phoebus left him. Fierce Minerva flies 
To stern Pelides, and triumphing, cries : 
" lov'd of Jove ! this day our labors cease, 
And conquest blazes with full beams on Greece. 280 

Great Hector falls ; that Hector f am'd so far, 
Drunk with renown, insatiable of war, 
Falls by thy hand and mine ! nor force nor flight 
Shall more avail him, nor his god of light. 
See, where in vain he supplicates above, 
Roll'd at the feet of unrelenting Jove ! 
Best here : myself will lead the Trojan on, 
And urge to meet the fate he cannot shun." 

Her voice divine the chief with joyful mind 
Obeyed ; and rested, on his lance reclin'd ; 290 

While like Deiphobus the martial dame 
(Her face, her gesture, and her arms, the same), 
In show an aid, by hapless Hector's side 
Approached, and greets him thus with voice belied : 

" Too long, Hector ! have I borne the sight 
Of this distress, and sorrowed in thy flight : 
It fits us now a noble stand to make, 
And here, as brothers, equal fates partake." 

Then he : a O prince ! allied in blood and fame, 
Dearer than all that own a brother's name ; 300 

Of all that Hecuba to Priam bore, 
Long tried, long lov'd ; much lov'd, but honor'd more ! 



74 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Since you of all our numerous race alone 
Defend my life, regardless of your own." 

Again the goddess : " Much, my father's pray'r, 
And much my mother' s, pressed me to forbear : 
My friends embraced my knees, adjur'd my stay, 
But stronger love impelFd, and I obey. 
Come then, the glorious conflict let us try, 
310 Let the steel sparkle and the jav'lin fly ; 
Or let us stretch Achilles on the field, 
Or to his arm our bloody trophies yield." 

Fraudful she said ; then swiftly march' d before ; 
The Dardan hero shuns his foe no more. 
Sternly they met. The silence Hector broke ; 
His dreadful plumage nodded as he spoke : 

" Enough, son of Peleus ! Troy has view'd 
Her walls thrice circled, and her chief pursued. 
But now some god within me bids me try 
320 Thine or my fate : I kill thee or I die. 
Yet on the verge of battle let us stay, 
And for a moment's space suspend the day : 
Let heavVs high pow'rs be call'd to arbitrate 
The just conditions of this stern debate, 
(Eternal witnesses of all below, 
And faithful guardians of the treasured vow ! ) : 
To them I swear : if, victor in the strife, 
Jove by these hands shall shed thy noble life, 



BOOK XXII. 75 

No vile dishonor shall thy corse pursue ; 

Stripped of its arms alone (the conqu'ror's due), 330 

The rest to Greece uninjur'd I'll restore : 

Now plight the mutual oath, I ask no more." 

" Talk not of oaths," the dreadful chief replies, 
While anger flash' d from his disdainful eyes, 
" Detested as thou art, and ought to be, 
Nor oath nor pact Achilles plights with thee ; 
Such pacts as lambs and rabid wolves combine, 
Such leagues as men and furious lions join, 
To such I call the gods ! one constant state 
Of lasting rancor and eternal hate : 340 

No thought but rage, and never-ceasing strife, 
Till death extinguish rage, and thought and life. 
Rouse then thy forces this important hour, 
Collect thy soul, and call forth all thy pow'r. 
No farther subterfuge, no farther chance ; 
'Tis Pallas, Pallas gives thee to my lance. 
Each Grecian ghost by thee depriv'd of breath, 
Now hovers round, and calls thee to thy death." 

He spoke, and launch'd his jav'lin at the foe ; 
But Hector shunn'd the meditated blow : 350 

He stoop'd, while o'er his head the flying spear 
Sung innocent, and spent its force in air. 
Minerva watch' d it falling on the land, 
Then drew, and gave to great Achilles' hand, 



76 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Unseen of Hector, who, elate with joy, 

Now shakes his lance, and braves the dread of Troy : 

" The life you boasted to that jav'lin giv'n, 
Prince ! you have miss'd. My fate depends on heav'n. 
To thee (presumptuous as thou art) unknown 

360 Or what must prove my fortune or thy own. 
Boasting is but an art, our fears to blind, 
And with false terrors sink another's mind. 
But know, whatever fate I am to try, 
By no dishonest wound shall Hector die ; 
I shall not fall a fugitive at least, 
My soul shall bravely issue from my breast. 
But first, try thou my arm ; and may this dart 
End all my country's woes, deep buried in thy heart ! " 
The weapon flew, its course unerring held ; 

370 Unerring, but the heav'nly shield repelFd 
The mortal dart ; resulting with a bound 
From off the ringing orb, it struck the ground. 
Hector beheld his jav'lin fall in vain, 
Nor other lance nor other hope remain ; 
He calls Deiphobus, demands a spear, 
In vain, for no Deiphobus was there. 
All comfortless he stands ; then, with a sigh : 
" 'Tis so — heav'n wills it, and my hour is nigh ! 
I deem'd Deiphobus had heard my call, 

380 But he secure lies guarded in the wall. 



BOOK XXII. 77 

A god deceived nie ; Pallas, 'twas thy deed : 
Death and black fate approach. ! 'Tis I must bleed. 
No refuge now, no succor from above, 
Great Jove deserts me, and the son of Jove, 
Propitious once and kind ! Then welcome fate ! 
'Tis true I perish, yet I perish great : 
Yet in a mighty deed I shall expire, 
Let future ages hear it, and admire ! " 

Fierce, at the word, his weighty sword he drew, 
And, all collected, on Achilles flew. 390 

So Jove's bold bird, high balanced in the air, 
Stoops from the clouds to truss the quiv'ring hare. 
Nor less Achilles his fierce soul prepares ; 
Before his breast the flaming shield he bears, 
Refulgent orb ! above his fourfold cone 
The gilded horse-hair sparkled in the sun, 
Nodding at ev'ry step (Vulcanian frame !), 
And as he mov'd, his figure seeni'd on flame. 
As radiant Hesper shines with keener light, 
Par-beaming o'er the silver host of night, 400 

When all the starry train emblaze the sphere : 
So shone the point of great Achilles' spear. 
In his right hand he waves the weapon round, 
Eyes the whole man, and meditates the wound : 
But the rich mail Patroclus lately wore, 
Securely cas'd the warrior's body o'er. 



78 POPE'S ILIAD. 

One place at length he spies, to let in fate, 
Where 'twixt the neck and throat the jointed plate 
Gave entrance : thro' that penetrable part 

410 Furious he drove the well-directed dart : 

Nor pierc'd the windpipe yet, nor took the pow'r 
Of speech, unhappy ! from thy dying hour. 
Prone on the field the bleeding warrior lies, 
While thus, triumphing, stern Achilles cries : 

" At last is Hector stretch' d upon the plain, 
Who f ear'd no vengeance for Patroclus slain : 
Then, prince ! you should have fear'd what now you 

feel ; 
Achilles absent was Achilles still. 
Yet a short space the great avenger stayed, 

420 Then low in dust thy strength and glory laid. 
Peaceful he sleeps, with all our rights adorn' d, 
For ever honor' d, and for ever mourn'd : 
While, cast to all the rage of hostile pow'r, 
Thee birds shall mangle, and the dogs devour." 

Then Hector, fainting at th' approach of death : 
" By thy own soul ! by those who gave thee breath ! 
By all the sacred prevalence of pray'r ; 
Ah, leave me not for Grecian dogs to tear ! 
The common rites of sepulture bestow, 

430 To soothe a father's and a mother's woe ; 
Let their large gifts procure an urn at least, 
And Hector's ashes in his country rest." 



BOOK XXII. 79 

" No, wretch accurs'd ! " relentless lie replies 
(Flames, as he spoke, shot flashing from his eyes), 
" Not those who gave me breath should bid me spare, 
Nor all the sacred prevalence of pray'r. 
Could I myself the bloody banquet join ! 
No — to the dogs that carcase I resign. 
Should Troy to bribe me bring forth all her store, 
And, giving thousands, offer thousands more ; 440 

Should Dardan Priam, and his weeping dame, 
Drain their whole realm to buy one f un'ral flame ; 
Their Hector on the pile they should not see, 
Nor rob the vultures of one limb of thee." 

Then thus the chief his dying accents drew : 
" Thy rage, implacable ! too well I knew : 
The Furies that relentless breast have steel' d, 
And curs'd thee with a heart that cannot yield. 
Yet think, a day will come, when fate's decree 
And angry gods shall wreak this wrong on thee ; 450 

Phoebus and Paris shall avenge my fate, 
And stretch thee here, before this Scaean gate." 

He ceas'd : the fates suppressed his laboring breath, 
And his eyes stiff en' d at the hand of death ; 
To the dark realm the spirit wings its way 
(The manly body left a load of clay), 
And plaintive glides along the dreary coast, 
A naked, wand'ring, melancholy ghost ! 



80 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Achilles, musing as lie roll'd his eyes 
460 O'er the dead hero, thus (unheard) replies : 

" Die thou the first ! when Jove and heav'n ordain, 
I follow thee." He said, and stripped the slain. 
Then, forcing backward from the gaping wound 
The reeking jav'lin, cast it on the ground. 
The thronging Greeks behold, with wond'ring eyes, 
His manly beauty and superior size : 
While some, ignobler, the great dead deface 
With wounds ungenerous, or with taunts disgrace : 
" How changed that Hector ! who, like Jove, of late 
470 Sent lightning on our fleets and scattered fate ! " 
High o'er the slain the great Achilles stands, 
Begirt with heroes and surrounding bands ; 
And thus aloud, while all the host attends : 
" Princes and leaders ! countrymen and friends ! 
Since now at length the powerful will of heav'n 
The dire destroyer to our arm has giv'n, 
Is not Troy f all'n already ? Haste, ye pow'rs ! 
See if already their deserted tow'rs 
Are left unmanned ; or if they yet retain 
480 The souls of heroes, their great Hector slain. 
But what is Troy, or glory what to me ? 
Or why reflects my mind on aught but thee, 
Divine Patroclus ! Death has seal'd his eyes ; 
Unwept, unhonor'd, uninterr'd he lies ! 



BOOK XXII. 81 

Can his dear image from my soul depart, 

Long as the vital spirit moves my heart ? 

If, in the melancholy shades below, 

The flames of friends and lovers cease to glow, 

Yet mine shall sacred last ; mine, undecay'd, 

Burn on thro' death, and animate my shade. 490 

Meanwhile, ye sons of Greece, in triumph bring 

The corse of Hector, and your paeans sing. 

Be this the song, slow moving toward the shore, 

1 Hector is dead, and Ilion is no more/ " 

Then his fell soul a thought of vengeance bred 
(Unworthy of himself, and of the dead) ; 
The nervous ankles bor'd, his feet he bound 
With thongs inserted thro' the double wound ; 
These fix'd up high behind the rolling wain, 
His graceful head was trail' d along the plain. 500 

Proud on his car th' insulting victor stood, 
And bore aloft his arms, distilling blood. 
He smites the steeds ; the rapid chariot flies ; 
The sudden clouds of circling dust arise. 
Now lost is all that formidable air ; 
The face divine and long-descending hair 
Purple the ground, and streak the sable sand ; 
Deform' d, dishonored, in his native land ! 
Giv'n to the rage of an insulting throng ! 
And, in his parents' sight, now dragg'd along ! 510 



82 POPE'S ILIAD. 

The mother first beheld with sad survey ; 
She rent her tresses, venerably grey, 
And cast far off the regal veils away. 
With piercing shrieks his bitter fate she moans, 
While the sad father answers groans with groans ; 
Tears after tears his mournful cheeks overflow, 
And the whole city wears one face of woe : 
No less than if the rage of hostile fires, 
From her foundations curling to her spires, 

520 O'er the proud citadel at length should rise, 
And the last blaze send Ilion to the skies. 
The wretched monarch of the falling state, 
Distracted, presses to the Dardan gate : 
Scarce the whole people stop his desp'rate course, 
While strong affliction gives the feeble force : 
• Grief tears his heart, and drives him to and fro, 
In all the raging impotence of woe. 
At length he roll'd in dust, and thus begun, 
Imploring all, and naming one by one : 

530 " Ah ! let me, let me go where sorrow calls ; 
I, only I, will issue from your walls 
(Guide or companion, friends ! I ask ye none), 
And bow before the murd'rer of my son ; 
My grief perhaps his pity may engage ; 
Perhaps at least he may respect my age. 
He has a father, too ; a man like me; 



BOOK XXII. 83 

One not exempt from age and misery 

(Vigorous no more, as when his young embrace 

Begot this pest of me and all my race). 

How many valiant sons, in early bloom, 540 

Has that curs'd hand sent headlong to the tomb ! 

Thee, Hector ! last ; thy loss (divinely brave ! ) 

Sinks my sad soul with sorrow to the grave. 

Oh had thy gentle spirit pass'd in peace, 

The son expiring in the sire's embrace, 

While both thy parents wept thy fatal hour, 

And, bending o'er thee, niix'd the tender show'r ! 

Some comfort that had been, some sad relief, 

To melt in full satiety of grief ! " 

Thus wail'd the father, grov'ling on the ground, 550 
And all the eyes of Ilion streamed around. 

Amidst her matrons Hecuba appears 
(A mourning princess, and a train in tears) : 
" Ah ! why has heav'n prolonged this hated breath, 
Patient of horrors to behold thy death ? 
Hector ! late thy parents' pride and joy, 
The boast of nations ! the defence of Troy ! 
To whom her safety and her fame she ow'd, 
Her chief, her hero, and almost her god ! 
fatal change ! become in one sad day 560 

A senseless corse ! inanimated clay ! " 

But not as yet the fatal news had spread 



84 POPE'S ILIAD. 

To fair Andromache, of Hector dead ; 

As yet no messenger had told his fate, 

Nor ev'n his stay without the Scsean gate. 

Far in the close recesses of the dome, 

Pensive she plied the melancholy loom ; 

A growing work employed her secret hours, 

Confus'dly gay with intermingled flow'rs. 
570 Her fair-hair'd handmaids heat the brazen urn, 

The bath preparing for her lord's return : 

In vain : alas ! her lord returns no more ! 

Unbath'd he lies, and bleeds along the shore ! 

Now from the walls the clamors reach her ear, 

And all her members shake with sudden fear ; 

Forth from her iv'ry hand the shuttle falls, 

As thus, astonished, to her maids she calls : 

" Ah, follow me!" she cried ; " what plaintive noise 

Invades my ear? ? Tis sure my mother's voice. 
580 My falt'ring knees their trembling frame desert, 

A pulse unusual flutters at my heart. 

Some strange disaster, some reverse of fate 

(Ye gods avert it !) threats the Trojan state. 

Far be the omen which my thoughts suggest ! 

But much I fear my Hector's dauntless breast 
- Confronts Achilles ; chas'd along the plain, 

Shut from our walls ! I fear, I fear him slain ! 

Safe in the crowd he ever scorn' d to wait, 



BOOK XXII. 85 

And sought for glory in the jaws of fate: 

Perhaps that noble heat has cost his breath, 590 

Now quench'd for ever in the arms of death. " 

She spoke ; and, furious, with distracted pace, 
Fears in her heart, and anguish in her face, 
Flies thro' the dome (the maids her step pursue), 
And mounts the walls, and sends around her view. 
Too soon her eyes the killing object found, 
The godlike Hector dragged along the ground. 
A sudden darkness shades her swimming eyes ; 
She faints, she falls ; her breath, her color flies. 
Her hair's fair ornaments, the braids that bound, 600 

The net that held them, and the wreath that crown' d, 
The veil and diadem, flew far away 
(The gift of Venus on her bridal day). 
Around, a train of weeping sisters stands, 
To raise her sinking with assistant hands. 
Scarce from the verge of death recall'd, again 
She faints, or but recovers to complain : 

" wretched husband of a wretched wife ! 
Born with one fate, to one unhappy life ! 
For sure one star its baneful beam di splay 'd eio 

On Priam's roof and Hippoplacia's shade. 
From different parents, diff'rent climes, we came, 
At diff'rent periods, yet our fate the same ! 
Why was my birth to great Eetion ow'd, 



86 POPE'S ILIAD, 

And why was all that tender care bestow'd ? 
Would I had never been ! — thou, the ghost 
Of my dead husband ! miserably lost ! 
Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone ! 
And I abandon' d, desolate, alone ! 

620 An only child, once comfort of my pains, 
Sad product now of hapless love, remains ! 
No more to smile upon his sire ! no friend 
To help him now ! no father to defend ! 
For should he 'scape the sword, the common doom, 
What wrongs attend him, and what griefs to come ! 
Ev'n from his own paternal roof expelPd, 
Some stranger plows his patrimonial field. 
The day that to the shades the father sends, 
Eobs the sad orphan of his father's friends : 

630 He, wretched outcast of mankind ! appears 
For ever sad, for ever bath'd in tears ; 
Amongst the happy, unregarded he 
Hangs on the robe or trembles at the knee ; 
While those his father's former bounty fed, 
Nor reach the goblet, nor divide the bread : 
The kindest but his present wants allay, 
To leave him wretched the succeeding day. 
Frugal compassion ! Heedless, they who boast 
Both parents still, nor feel what he has lost, 

640 Shall cry, ' Begone ! thy father feasts not here : ' 



BOOK XXII. 87 

The wretch obeys, retiring with a tear. 

Thus wretched, thus retiring all in tears, 

To my sad soul Astyanax appears ! 

Forc'd by repeated insults to return, 

And to his widow' d mother vainly mourn, 

He who, with tender delicacy bred, 

With princes sported, and on dainties fed, 

And, when still evening gave him up to rest, 

Sank soft in down upon the nurse's breast, 

Must — ah ! what must he not ? Whom Ilion calls 650 

Astyanax, from her well-guarded walls, 

Is now that name no more, unhappy boy ! 

Since now no more the father guards his Troy. 

But thou, my Hector ! liest expos' d in air, 

Far from thy parents' and thy consort's care, 

Whose hand in vain, directed by her love, 

The martial scarf and robe of triumph wove. 

Now to devouring flames be these a prey, 

Useless to thee, from this accursed day ! 

Yet let the sacrifice at least be paid, 660 

An honor to the living, not the dead ! " 

So spake the mournful dame : her matrons hear, 
Sigh back her sighs, and answer tear with tear. 



88 POPE'S ILIAD. 



BOOK XXIV. 1 

THE REDEMPTION OF THE BODY OF HECTOR. 

The gods deliberate about the redemption of Hector's 
body. Jupiter sends Thetis to Achilles to dispose him for 
the restoring it, and Iris to Priam, to encourage him to go 
in person and treat for it. The old king, notwithstanding 
the remonstrances of his queen, makes ready for the jour- 
ney, to which he is encouraged by an omen from Jupiter. 
He sets forth in his chariot, with a wagon loaded with pres- 
ents, under the charge of Idaeus the herald. Mercury de- 
scends in the shape of a young man, and conducts him to 
the pavilion of Achilles. Their conversation on the way. 
Priam finds Achilles at his table, casts himself at his feet, 
and begs for the body of his son : Achilles, moved with 
compassion, grants his request, detains him one night in his 
tent, and the next morning sends him home with the body : 
the Trojans run out to meet him. The lamentation of An- 
dromache, Hecuba, and Helen, with the solemnities of the 
funeral. 

The time of twelve days is employed in this book, while 



i The preceding book tells of the funeral games in honor of Patro- 
clus. 



BOOK XXIV. 89 

the body of Hector lies in the tent of Achilles. And as 
many more are spent in the truce allowed for his interment. 
The scene is partly in Achilles' camp, and partly in Troy. 

Now from the finished games the Grecian band 
Seek their black ships, and clear the crowded strand : 
All. stretched at ease the genial banquet share, 
And pleasing slnmbers quiet all their care. 
Not so Achilles : he, to grief resigned, 
His friend's dear image present to his mind, 
Takes his sad couch, more unobserved to weep, 
Nor tastes the gifts of all-composing sleep ; 
Restless he rolled around his weary bed, 
And all his soul on his Patroclus fed : 10 

The form so pleasing, and the heart so kind, 
That youthful vigor, and that manly mind, 
What toils they shared, what martial works they 

wrought, 
What seas they measured, and what fields they 

fought ; 
All pass'd before him in remembrance dear, 
Thought follows thought, and tear succeeds to tear. 
And now supine, now prone, the hero lay, 
Now shifts his side, impatient for the day ; 
Then starting up, disconsolate he goes 
Wide on the lonely beach to vent his woes. 20 



90 POPE'S ILIAD. 

There as the solitary mourner raves, 
The ruddy morning rises o'er the waves : 
Soon as it rose, his furious steeds he join'd ; 
The chariot flies, and Hector trails behind. 
And thrice, Patroclus ! round thy monument 
Was Hector dragg'd, then hurried to the tent. 
There sleep at last overcomes the hero's eyes ; 
While foul in dust th' unhonor'd carcase lies. 
But not deserted by the pitying skies. 

30 For Phoebus watch' d it with superior care, 

Preserved from gaping wounds, and tainting air ; 
And, ignominious as it swept the field, 
Spread o'er the sacred corse his golden shield. 
All heav'n was mov'd, and Hermes wilFd to go 
By stealth to snatch him from th ? insulting foe : 
But Neptune this, and Pallas this denies, 
And th' unrelenting empress of the skies : 
E'er since that day implacable to Troy, 
What time young Paris, simple shepherd boy, 

40 Won by destructive lust (reward obscene), 
Their charms rejected for the Cyprian queen. 
But when the tenth celestial morning broke, 
To heav'n assembled, thus Apollo spoke : 

" Unpitying pow'rs ! hpw oft each holy fane 
Has Hector ting'd with blood of victims slain ! 
And can ye still his cold remains pursue ? 



BOOK XXIV. 91 

Still grudge his body to the Trojans' view ? 

Deny to consort, mother, son, and sire, 

The last sad honors of a fun'ral fire ? 

Is then the dire Achilles all your care ? 50 

That iron heart, inflexibly severe ; 

A lion, not a man, who slaughters wide 

In strength of rage and impotence of pride ? 

Who hastes to murder with a savage joy, 

Invades around, and breathes but to destroy ? 

Shame is not of his soul ; nor understood 

The greatest evil and the greatest good. 

Still for one loss he rages unresign'd, 

Kepugnant to the lot of all mankind ; 

To lose a friend, a brother, or a son, 60 

Heav'n dooms each mortal, and its will is done : 

Awhile they sorrow, then dismiss their care ; 

Fate gives the wound, and man is born to bear. 

But this insatiate the commission giv'n 

By fate exceeds, and tempts the wrath of heav'n : 

Lo, how his rage dishonest drags along 

Hector's dead earth, insensible of wrong ! 

Brave tho' he be, yet by no reason aw'd, 

He violates the laws of man and God ! " 

" If equal honors by the partial skies 70 

Are doom'd both heroes," Juno thus replies, 
" If Thetis' son must no distinction know, 



92 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Then hear, ye gods ! the patron of the bow. 
But Hector only boasts a mortal claim, 
His birth deriving from a mortal dame : 
Achilles, of your own ethereal race, 
Springs from a goddess, by a man's embrace 
(A goddess by ourself to Peleus giv'n 
A man divine, and chosen friend of heav'n): 

80 To grace those nuptials, from the bright abode 
Yourselves were present ; where this minstrel-god 
(Well-pleas'd to share the feast) amid the choir 
Stood proud to hymn, and tune his youthful lyre." 

Then thus the Thund'rer checks th' imperial dame : 
" Let not thy wrath the court of heav'n inflame ; 
Their merits nor their honors are the same. 
But mine and ev'ry god's peculiar grace 
Hector deserves, of all the Trojan race : 
Still on our shrines his grateful offerings lay 

90 (The only honors men to gods can pay) : 
Nor ever from our smoking altar ceas'd 
The pure libation, and the holy feast. 
Howe'er, by stealth to snatch the corse away, 
We will not: Thetis guards it night and day. 
But haste, and summon to our courts above 
The azure queen : let her persuasion move 
Her furious son from Priam to receive 
The proffer'd ransom, and the corse to leave/' 



BOOK XXIV. 93 

He added not : and Iris from the skies, 
Swift as a whirlwind, on the message flies; 100 

Mebeorous the face of ocean sweeps, 
Refulgent gliding o'er the sable deeps. 
Between where Samos wide his forests spreads, 
And rocky Imbrus lifts its pointed heads, 
Down plung'd the maid (the parted waves resound); 
She plung'd, and instant shot the dark profound. 
As, bearing death in the fallacious bait, 
From the bent angle sinks the leaden weight ; 
So passed the goddess thro' the closing wave, 
Where Thetis sorrow'd in her secret cave : no 

There plac'd amidst her melancholy train 
(The blue-hair'd sisters of the sacred main), 
Pensive she sat, revolving fates to come, 
And wept her godlike son's approaching doom. 

Then thus the goddess of the painted bow : 
" Arise, Thetis ! from thy seats below ; 
5 Tis Jove that calls." " And why/' the dame replies, 
u Calls Jove his Thetis to the hated skies ? 
Sad object as I am for heavn'ly sight ! 
Ah ! may my sorrows ever shun the light ! 120 

Howe'er, be heav'n's almighty sire obey'd." 
She spake, and veil'cl her head in sable shade, 
Which, flowing long, her graceful person clad ; 
And forth she pac'd majestically sad. 



94 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Then through the world of waters they repair 
(The way fair Iris led) to upper air. 
The deeps dividing, o'er the coast they rise, 
And touch with momentary flight the skies. 
There in the lightning's blaze the sire they found 

130 And all the gods in shining synod round. 
Thetis approach'd with anguish in her face 
(Minerva rising gave the mourner place), 
Ev'n Juno sought her sorrows to console, 
And offer'd from her hand the nectar-bowl : 
She tasted, and resign'd it : then began 
The sacred sire of gods and mortal man : 

" Thou com'st, fair Thetis, but with grief o'ercast, 
Maternal sorrows, long, ah long to last ! 
Suffice, we know and we partake thy cares : 

140 But yield to fate, and hear what Jove declares. 
Mne days are past, since all the court above 
In Hector's cause have mov'd the ear of Jove ; 
'Twas voted, Hermes from his godlike foe 
By stealth should bear him, but we will'd not so : 
We will, thy son himself the corse restore, 
And to his conquest add this glory more. 
Then hie thee to him, and our mandate bear ; 
Tell him he tempts the wrath of heav'n too far : 
Nor let him more (our anger if he dread) 

iso Vent his sad vengeance on the sacred dead : 



BOOK XXIV, 95 

But yield to ransom and the father's pray'r. 
The mournful father Iris shall prepare 
With gifts to sue ; and offer to his hands 
Whatever his honor asks or heart demands." 

His word the silver-footed queen attends, 
And from Olympus' snowy tops descends. 
Arrived, she heard the voice of loud lament, 
And echoing groans that shook the lofty tent. 
His friends prepare the victim, and dispose 
Repast unheeded, while he vents his woes. 160 

The goddess seats her by her pensive son ; 
She pressed his hand, and tender thus begun : 

" How long, unhappy ! shall thy sorrows flow, 
And thy heart waste with life-consuming woe, 
Mindless of food, or love, whose pleasing reign 
Soothes weary life, and softens human pain ? 
Oh snatch the moments yet within thy pow'r ; 
Not long to live, indulge the am'rous hour ! 
Lo ! Jove himself (for Jove's command I bear) 
Forbids to tempt the wrath of heav'n too far. i 70 

No longer then (his fury if thou dread) 
Detain the relics of great Hector dead ; 
Nor vent on senseless earth thy vengeance vain, 
But yield to ransom, and restore the slain." 

To whom Achilles : " Be the ransom giv'n, 
And we submit, since such the will of heav'n." 



96 POPE'S ILIAD. 

While thus they commun'd, from th' Olympian 
bow'rs 
Jove orders Iris to the Trojan tow'rs : 
" Haste, winged goddess, to the sacred town, 

180 And urge her monarch to redeem his son ; 
Alone the Ilian ramparts let him leave, 
And bear what stern Achilles may receive : 
Alone, for so we will : no Trojan near; 
Except, to place the dead with decent care, 
Some aged herald, who, with gentle hand, 
May the slow mules and fun'ral car command. 
Nor let him death, nor let him danger dread, 
Safe thro' the foe by our protection led : 
Him Hermes to Achilles shall convey, 

190 Guard of his life, and partner of his way. 
Fierce as he is, Achilles' self shall spare 
His age, nor touch one venerable hair : 
Some thought there must be in a soul so brave, 
Some sense of duty, some desire to save." 

Then down her bow the winged Iris drives, 
And swift at Priam's mournful court arrives : 
"Where the sad sons beside their father's throne 
Sate bathed in tears, and answer'd groan with groan. 
And all amidst them lay the hoary sire 

200 (Sad scene of woe !), his face his wrapp'd attire 
Conceal'd from sight ; with frantic hands he spread 



BOOK XXIV. 97 

A show'r of ashes o'er his neck and head. 
From room to room his pensive daughters roam, 
Whose shrieks and clamors fill the vaulted dome ; 
Mindful of those who, late their pride and joy, 
Lie pale and breathless round the fields of Troy ! 
Before the king Jove's messenger appears, 
And thus in whispers greets his trembling ears : 

" Fear not, father ! no ill news I bear ; 
From Jove I come, Jove makes thee still his care ; 210 
For Hector's sake these walls he bids thee leave, 
And bear what stern Achilles may receive : 
Alone, for so he wills : no Trojan near, 
Except, to place the dead with decent care, 
Some aged herald, who, with gentle hand, 
May the slow mules and fun'ral car command. 
Nor shalt thou death, nor shalt thou danger dread ; 
Safe thro' the foe by his protection led : 
Thee Hermes to Pelides shall convey, 
Guard of thy life, and partner of thy way. 220 

Fierce as he is, Achilles' self shall spare 
Thy age, nor touch one venerable hair : 
Some thought there must be in a soul so brave, 
Some sense of duty, some desire to save." 

She spoke, and vanish'd. Priam bids prepare 
His gentle mules, and harness to the car ; 
There, for the gifts, a polish'd casket lay : 



98 POPE'S ILIAD. 

His pious sons the king's commands obey. 
Then pass'd the monarch to his bridal-room, 

230 Where cedar-beams the lofty roofs perfume, 
And where the treasures of his empire lay : 
Then call'd his queen, and thus began to say : 

" Unhappy consort of a king distressed ! 
Partake the troubles of thy husband's breast : 
I saw descend the messenger of Jove, 
Who bids me try Achilles' mind to move, 
Forsake these ramparts, and with gifts obtain 
The corse of Hector, at yon navy slain. 
Tell me thy thought : my heart impels to go 

240 Thro' hostile camps, and bears me to the foe." 
The hoary monarch thus : her piercing cries 
Sad Hecuba renews, and then replies : 
" Ah ! whither wanders thy distemper'd mind ; 
And where the prudence now that aw'd mankind, 
Thro' Phrygia once and foreign regions known ? 
Now all conf us'd, distracted, overthrown ! 
Singly to pass thro' hosts of foes ! to face 
(0 heart of steel !) the murd'rer of thy race ! 
To view that deathful eye, and wander o'er 

250 Those hands, yet red with Hector's noble gore ! 
Alas ! my lord ! he knows not how to spare, 
And what his mercy, thy slain sons declare ; 
So brave ! so many f all'n ! To calm his rage 



book xxir. 99 

Vain were thy dignity, and vain thy age. 

No — pent in this sad palace, let us give 

To grief the wretched days we have to live. 

Still, still for Hector let our sorrows flow, 

Born to his own and to his parents' woe ! 

Doomed from the hour his luckless life begun, 

To dogs, to vultures, and to Peleus' son ! 260 

Oh ! in his dearest blood might. I allay 

My rage, and these barbarities repay ! 

For ah ! could Hector merit thus ? whose breath 

Expired not meanly in unactive death : 

He pour'd his latest blood in manly fight, 

And fell a hero in his country's right." 

" Seek not to stay me, nor my soul affright 
With words of omen, like a bird of night," 
Replied unmov'd the venerable man : 

" 'Tis heaven commands me, and you urge in vain. 270 

Had any mortal voice th ? injunction laid, 
Nor augur, priest, nor seer had been obeyed. 
A present goddess brought the high command : 
I saw, I heard her, and the word shall stand. 
I go, ye gods ! obedient to your call : 
If in yon camp your pow'rs have doom'd my fall, 
Content : by the same hand let me expire ! 
Add to the slaughtered son the wretched sire ! 
One cold embrace at least may be allowed, 

L.ofC. 



100 POPE'S ILIAD. 

280 And my last tears flow mingled with his blood ! v 
Forth from his open'd stores, this said, he drew 

Twelve costly carpets of refulgent hue ; 

As many vests, as many mantles told, 

And twelve fair veils, and garments stiff with gold ; 

Two tripods next, and twice two chargers shine, 

With ten pure talents from the richest mine ; 

And last a large, well-labor'd bowl had place 

(The pledge of treaties once with friendly Thrace) : 

Seem'd all too mean the stores he could employ, 
290 For one last look to buy him back to Troy ! 
Lo ! the sad father, frantic with his pain, 

Around him furious drives his menial train : 

In vain each slave with duteous care attends, 

Each office hurts him, and each face offends. 

" What make ye here, officious crowds ! " he cries ; 

" Hence, nor obtrude your anguish on my eyes. 

Have ye no griefs at home, to fix ye there ■? 

Am I the only object of despair ? 

Am I become my people's common show, 
300 Set up by Jove your spectacle of woe ? 

No, you must feel him too : yourselves must fall ; 

The same stern god to ruin gives you all : 

Nor is great Hector lost by me alone ; 

Your sole defence, your guardian pow'r, is gone ! 

I see your blood the fields of Phrygia drown ; 



BOOK XXIV. 101 

I see the ruins of your smoking town ! 

Oh send me, gods, ere that sad day shall come, 

A willing ghost to Pluto's dreary dome ! " 

He said, and feebly drives his friends away : 
The sorrowing friends his frantic rage obey. 310 

Next on his sons his erring fury falls, 
Polites, Paris, Agathon, he calls ; 
His threats Deiphobus and Dius hear, 
Hippothotis, Pammon, Helenus the seer, 
And gen'rous Antiphon ; for yet these nine 
Surviv'd, sad relics of his numerous line. 

" Inglorious sons of an unhappy sire ! 
Why did not all in Hector's cause expire ? 
Wretch that I am ! my bravest offspring slain, 
You, the disgrace of Priam's house, remain ! 320 

Mestor the brave, renown' d in ranks of war, 
With Troilus, dreadful on his rushing car, 
And last great Hector, more than man divine, 
For sure he seem'd not of terrestrial line ! 
All those relentless Mars untimely slew, 
And left me these, a soft and servile crew, 
Whose days the feast and wanton dance employ, 
Gluttons and flatt'rers, the contempt of Troy ! 
Why teach ye not my rapid wheels to run, 
And speed my journey to rede:m my son ?" 330 

The sons their father's wretched age revere, 



102 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Forgive his anger, and produce the car. 
High on the seat the cabinet they bind: 
The new-made car with solid beauty shin'd : 
Box was the yoke, emboss'd with costly pains, 
And hung with ringlets to receive the reins : 
Nine cubits long, the traces swept the ground ; 
These to the chariot's poHsh'd pole they bound, 
Then flx'd a ring the running reins to guide, 

340 And, close beneath, the gathered ends were tied. 
Next with the gifts (the price of Hector slain) 
The sad attendants load the groaning wain : 
Last to the yoke the well-match' d mules they bring 
(The gift of Mysia to the Trojan king). 
But the fair horses, long his darling care, 
Himself received, and harness'd to his car : 
Griev'd as he was, he not this task denied ; 
The hoary herald help'd him at his side. 
While careful these the gentle coursers join'd, 

350 Sad Hecuba approach' d with anxious mind ; 
A golden bowl, that foam'd with fragrant wine 
(Libation destin'd to the pow'r divine), 
Held in her right, before the steeds she stands, 
And thus consigns it to the monarch's hands : 

"Take this, and pour to Jove; that, safe from 
harms, 
His grace restore thee to our roof and arms. 



BOOK XXIV, 103 

Since, victor of thy fears, and slighting mine, 

Heav'n or thy soul inspire this bold design : 

Pray to that god who, high on Ida's brow, 

Surveys thy desolated realms below, 360 

His winged messenger to send from high, 

And lead the way with heav'nly augury : 

Let the strong sovereign of the plumy race 

Tow'r on the right of yon ethereal space. 

That sign beheld, and strengthened from above, 

Boldly pursue the journey marked by Jove ; 

But if the god his augury denies, 

Suppress thy impulse, nor reject advice." 

" "Tis just," said Priam, " to the sire above 
To raise our hands ; for who so good as Jove ? " 370 

He spoke, and bade th' attendant handmaid bring 
The purest water of the living spring 
(Her ready hands the ewer and basin held) ; 
Then took the golden cup his queen had fill'd ; 
On the mid pavement pours the rosy wine, 
Uplifts his eyes, and calls the pow'r divine : 

" first and greatest ! heav'n's imperial lord ! 
On lofty Ida's holy hill ador'd ! 
To stern Achilles now direct my ways, 
And teach him mercy when a father prays. 380 

If such thy will, dispatch fror^. yonder sky 
Thy sacred bird, celestial augury ! 



104 



POPE'S ILIAD. 



Let the strong sovereign of the plumy race 
Tow'r on the right of yon ethereal space : 
So shall thy suppliant, strengthened from above, 
Fearless pursue the journey mark'd by Jove." 

Jove heard his pray'r, and from the throne on high 
Dispatch'd his bird, celestial augury ! 
The swif t-wing'd chaser of the feathered game, 

390 And known to gods by Percnos' lofty name. 
Wide as appears some palace-gate displayed, 
So broad his pinions stretch'd their ample shade, 
As, stooping dexter with resounding wings, 
Th' imperial bird descends in airy rings. 
A dawn of joy in ev'ry face appears ; 
The mourning matron dries her tim'rous tears. 
Swift on his car th ? impatient monarch sprung; 
The brazen portal in his passage rung. 
The mules preceding draw the loaded wain, 

4oo Charg'd with the gifts ; Idaeus holds the rein : 
The king himself his gentle steeds controls, 
And thro' surrounding friends the chariot rolls : 
On his slow wheels the following people wait, 
Mourn at each step, and give him up to fate ; 
With hands uplifted, eye him as he pass'd, 
And gaze upon him as they gaz'd their last. 
Now forward fares the father on his way, 
Thro' the lone fields, and back to Ilion they. 



BOOK XXIV. 105 

Great Jove beheld him as he crossed the plain, 

And felt the woes of miserable man. 410 

Then thus to Hermes : " Thou, whose constant cares 

Still succor mortals, and attend their pray'rs ! 

Behold an object to thy charge consigned ; 

If ever pity touch'd thee for mankind, 

Go, guard the sire; th' observing foe prevent . 

And safe conduct him to Achilles 7 tent." 

The god obeys, his golden pinions binds, 
And mounts incumbent on the wings of winds, 
That high thro' fields of air his flight sustain, 
O'er the wide earth, and o'er the boundless main ; 420 

Then grasps the wand that causes sleep to fly, 
Or in soft slumbers seals the wakeful eye : 
Thus arm'd, swift Hermes steers his airy way, 
And stoops on Hellespont's resounding sea. 
A beauteous youth, majestic and divine, 
He seem'd ; fair offspring of some princely line ! 
Now twilight veil'd the glaring face of day, 
And clad the dusky fields in sober gray ; 
What time the herald and the hoary king, 
Their chariot stopping at the silver spring, 430 

That circling Ilus' ancient marble flows, 
Allow'd their mules and steeds a short repose. 
Thro' the dim shade the herald first espies 
A man's approach, and thus to Priam cries ; 



106 POPE'S ILIAD. 

" I mark some foe's advance : king ! beware; 
This hard adventure claims thy utmost care ; 
For much I fear destruction hovers nigh : 
Our state asks counsel. Is it best to fly ? 
Or, old and helpless, at his feet to fall 
440 (Two wretched suppliants), and for mercy call ? " 

Th' afflicted monarch shiver'd with despair ; 
Pale grew his face, and upright stood his hair ; 
Sunk was his heart ; his color went and came ; 
A sudden trembling shook his aged frame : 
When Hermes, greeting, touched his royal hand, 
And, gentle, thus accosts with kind demand : 

" Say whither, father ! when each mortal sight 
Is seal'd in sleep, thou wander' st thro' the night ? 
Why roam thy mules and steeds the plains along, 
450 Thro' Grecian foes, so num'rous and so strong ? 

What couldst thou hope, should these thy treasures 

view, 
These, who with endless hate thy race pursue ? 
For what defence, alas ! couldst thou provide ? 
Thyself not young, a weak old man thy guide. 
Yet suffer not thy soul to sink with dread ; 
From me no harm shall touch thy rev'rend head : 
From Greece I'll guard thee too ; for in those lines 
The living image of my father shines." 

" Thy words, that speak benevolence of mind, 



BOOK XXIV. 107 

Are true, my son ! " the godlike sire rejoin' d : 460 

" Great are my hazards ; but the gods survey 
My steps, and send thee guardian of my way. 
Hail ! and be blest ! for scarce of mortal kind 
Appear thy form, thy feature, and thy mind." 

" Nor true are all thy words, nor erring wide," 
The sacred messenger of heaven replied : 
" But say, convey'st thou thro' the lonely plains 
What yet most precious of thy store remains, 
To lodge in safety with some friendly hand, 
Prepared perchance to leave thy native land ? 470 

Or fly'st thou now ? What hopes can Troy retain, 
Thy matchless son, her guard and glory, slain ? " 

The king, alarm'd : " Say what, and whence thou art, 
Who search the sorrows of a parent's heart, 
And know so well how godlike Hector died." 
Thus Priam spoke, and Hermes thus replied : 

" You tempt me, father, and with pity touch : 
On this sad subject you enquire too much. 
Oft have these eyes the godlike Hector viewed 
In glorious fight, with Grecian blood embru'd : 48 o 

I saw him when, like Jove, his flames he toss'd 
On thousand ships, and withered half a host : 
I saw, but help'd not ; stern Achilles' ire 
Forbade assistance, and enjoy'd the fire. 
For him I serve, of Myrmidonian race ; 



108 POPE'S ILIAD. 

One ship convey'd us from our native place ; 
Polyctor is my sire, an honor'd name, 
Old, like thyself, and not unknown to fame ; 
Of sev'n his sons, by whom the lot was cast 

490 To serve our prince, it fell on me the last. 
To watch this quarter my adventure falls 5 
For with the morn the Greeks attack your walls : 
Sleepless they sit, impatient to engage, 
And scarce their rulers check their martial rage." 

" If then thou art of stern Pelides' train " 
(The mournful monarch thus re joined again), 
" Ah, tell me truly, where, oh ! where are laid 
My son's dear relics ? what befalls him dead ? 
Have dogs dismember'd on the naked plains, 

500 Or yet unmangled rest his cold remains ? w 

" favor' d of the skies ! " thus answered then 
The pow'r that mediates between gods and men, 
" Nor dogs nor vultures have thy Hector rent, 
But whole he lies, neglected in the tent : 
This the twelfth ev'ning since he rested there, 
Untouched by worms, untainted by the air. 
Still as Aurora's ruddy beam is spread, 
Eound his friend's tomb Achilles drags the dead ; 
Yet undisfigur'd, or in limb or face, 

510 All fresh he lies, with ev'ry living grace, 
Majestical in death ! No stains are found 



BOOK XXIV. 109 

O'er all the corse, and clos'd is ev'ry wound ; 

Tho' many a wound they gave. Some heav'nly care, 

Some hand divine, preserves him ever fair : 

Or all the host of heav'n, to whom he led 

A life so grateful, still regard him dead." 

Thus spoke to Priam the celestial guide, 
And joyful thus the royal sire replied : 
" Bless'd is the man who pays the gods above 
The constant tribute of respect and love ! 520 

Those who inhabit the Olympian bow'r 
My son forgot not, in exalted pow'r ; 
And heav'n, that ev'ry virtue bears in mind, 
Ev'n to the ashes of the just is kind. 
But thou, gen'rous youth ! this goblet take, 
A pledge of gratitude for Hector's sake ; 
And while the fav'ring gods our steps survey, 
Safe to Pelides' tent conduct my way." 

To whom the latent god ; " king, forbear 
To tempt my youth, for apt is youth to err : 530 

But can I, absent from my prince's sight, 
Take gifts in secret, that must shun the light ? 
What from our master's interest thus we draw 
Is but a licens'd theft that 'scapes the law. 
Respecting him, my soul abjures th' offence ; 
And, as the crime, I dread the consequence. 
Thee, as far as Argos, pleas'd I could convey ; 



110 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Guard of thy life, and partner of thy vay • 
On thee attend, thy safety to maintain, 

540 O'er pathless forests, or the roaring main." 
He said, then took the chariot at a bound, 
And snatch' d the reins, and whirPd the lash around : 
Before th' inspiring god that urg'd them on 
The coursers fly, with spirit not their own. 
And now they reached the naval walls, and found 
The guards repasting, while the bowls go round : 
On these the virtue of his wand he tries, 
And pours deep slumber on their watchful eyes ; 
Then heav'd the massy gates, removed the bars, 

550 And o'er the trenches led the rolling cars. 
Unseen, thro' all the hostile camp they went, 
And now approached Pelides' lofty tent. 
Of fir the roof was rais'd, and covered o'er 
With reeds collected from the marshy shore ; 
And, fenc'd with palisades, a hall of state 
(The work of soldiers), where the hero sate< 
Large was the door, whose well-compacted strength 
A solid pine-tree barr'd of wond'rous length ; 
Scarce three strong Greeks could lift "ts mighty 
weight, 

560 But great Achilles singly clos'd the gate. 

This Hermes (such the pow'r of gods) set wide ; 
Then swift alighted the celestial guide, 



BOOK XXIV. Ill 

And thus, reveal'd : " Hear, prince ! and understand 

Thou ow'st thy guidance to no mortal hand : 

Hermes I am, descended from above, 

The king of arts, the messenger of Jove. 

Farewell : to shun Achilles' sight I fly ; 

Uncommon are such favors of the sky, 

Nor stand confessed to frail mortality. 

Now fearless enter, and prefer thy pray'rs ; 570 

Adjure him by his father's silver hairs, 

His son, his mother ! urge him to bestow 

Whatever pity that stern heart can know." 

Thus having said, he vanished from his eyes, 
And in a moment shot into the skies : 
The king, confirmed from heav'n, alighted there, 
And left his aged herald on the car. 
With solemn pace thro' various rooms he went, 
And found Achilles in his inner tent : 
There sate the hero ; Alcimus the brave, 580 

And great Automedon, attendance gave ; 
These serv'd his person at the royal feast ; 
Around, at awful distance, stood the rest. 

Unseen by these, the king his entry made ; 
And, prostrate now before Achilles laid, 
Sudden (a venerable sight!) appears; 
Embraced his knees, and bath'd his hands in tears ; 
Those direful hands his kisses press'd, embru'd 



112 POPE'S ILIAD. 

Ev'n with the best, the dearest of his blood ! 

590 As when a wretch (who, conscious of his crime, 
Pursued for murcler flies his native clime) 
Just gains some frontier, breathless, pale, amaz'd ! 
All gaze, all wonder : thus Achilles gaz'd : 
Thus stood th ? attendants stupid with surprise : 
All mute, yet seem'd to question with their eyes : 
Each looked on other, none the silence broke, 
Till thus at last the kingly suppliant spoke : 

" Ah think, thou f avor'd of the powers divine ! 
Think of thy father's age, and pity mine ! 

6oo In me, that father's rev'rend image trace, 
Those silver hairs, that venerable face ; 
His trembling limbs, his helpless person, see ! 
In all my equal, but in misery ! 
Yet now, perhaps, some turn of human fate 
Expels him helpless from his peaceful state ; 
Think, from some powerful foe thou see'st him fly, 
And beg protection with a feeble cry. 
Yet still one comfort in his soul may rise ; 
He hears his son still lives to glad his eyes ; 

6io And, hearing, still may hope a better day 
May send him thee, to chase that foe away. 
No comfort to my griefs, no hopes remain, 
The best, the bravest, of my sons are slain ! 
Yet what a race ! ere Greece to Ilion came, 



BOOK XXIV. 113 

The pledge of many a lov'd and loving dame ! 

Nineteen one mother bore — dead, all are dead! 

How oft, alas ! has wretched Priam bled ! 

Still one was left, their loss to recompense ; 

His father's hope, his country's last defence. 

Him too thy rage has slain ! beneath thy steel, 620 

Unhappy, in his country's cause, he fell ! 

For him thro' hostile camps I bent my way ; 

For him thus prostrate at thy feet I lay ; 

Large gifts, proportion' d to thy wrath, I bear : 

0, hear the wretched, and the gods revere ! 

Think of thy father, and this face behold ! 

See him in me, as helpless and as old ; 

Tho' not so wretched : there he yields to me, 

The first of men in sov'reign misery : 

Thus f ore'd to kneel, thus grov'ling to embrace 630 

The scourge and ruin t)f my realm and race ; 

Suppliant my children's murd'rer to implore, 

And kiss those hands yet reeking with their gore ! " 

These words soft pity in the chief inspire, 
Touch'd with the dear remembrance of his sire. 
Then with his hand (as prostrate still he "ay) 
The old man's cheek he gently turn'd away. 
Now each by turns indulg'd the gush of woe ; 
And now the mingled tides together flow : 
This low on earth, that gently bending o'er, 640 



114 POPE'S ILIAD. 

A father one, and one a son deplore : 
But great Achilles difPrent passions rend, 
And now his sire he mourns, and now his friend. 
Th' infectious softness thro' the heroes ran ; 
One universal solemn show'r began ; 
They bore as heroes, but they felt as man. 
Satiate at length with unavailing woes, 
From the high throne divine Achilles rose ; 
The rev'rend monarch by the hand he rais'd j 

650 On his white beard and form majestic gaz'd, 
Not unrelenting : then serene began 
With words to soothe the miserable man : 

"Alas ! what weight of anguish hast thou known. 
Unhappy prince ! thus guardless and alone 
To pass thro ? foes, and thus undaunted face 
The man whose fury has destroyed thy race ! 
Heav'n sure has arm'd thee with a heart of steel, 
A strength proportioned to the woes you feel. 
Rise then : let reason mitigate our care : 

660 To mourn avails not : man is born to bear. 
Such is, alas ! the gods' severe decree ; 
They, only they are blest, and only free. 
Two urns by Jove's high throne have ever stood, 
The source of evil one, and one of good ; 
From thence the cup of mortal man he fills, 
Blessings to these, to those distributes ills ; 



BOOK XXIV. 115 

To most he mingles both : the wretch decreed 

To taste the bad unmix'd, is curs'd indeed : 

Pursued by wrongs, by meagre famine driv'n, 

He wanders, ontcast both of earth and heav'n. 670 

The happiest taste not happiness sincere, 

But find the cordial draught is clash' d with care. 

Who more than Peleus shone in wealth and pow'r ? 

What stars concurring bless'd his natal hour ! 

A realm, a goddess, to his wishes giv'n, 

Grac'd by the gods with all the gifts of heav'n ! 

One evil, yet, overtakes his latest day ; 

No race succeeding to imperial sway : 

An only son ! and he ( alas ! ) ordain' d 

To fall untimely in a foreign land ! 680 

See him, in Troy, the pious care decline 

Of his weak age, to live the curse of thine ! 

Thou too, old man, hast happier days beheld ; 

In riches once, in children once excell'd ; 

Extended Phrygia own'd thy ample reign, 

And all fair Lesbos' blissful seats contain, 

And all wide Hellespont's unmeasur'd main. 

But since the god his hand has pleas'd to turn, 

And fill thy measure from his bitter urn, 

What sees the sun but hapless heroes' falls ? 690 

War and the blood of men surround thy walls ! 

What must be, must be. Bear thy lot, nor shed 



113 POPE'S ILIAD. 

These unavailing sorrows o'er the dead ; 

Thou canst not call him from the Stygian shore, 

But thou, alas ! mayst live to suffer more ! " 

To whom the king : " f avor'd of the skies ! 
Here let me grow to earth ! since Hector lies 
On the bare beach, depriv'd of obsequies. 
Oh, give me Hector ! to my eyes restore 

700 His corse, and take the gifts : I ask no more ! 

Thou, as thou mayst, these boundless stores enjoy ; 
Safe mayst thou sail, and turn thy wrath from Troy ; 
So shall thy pity and forbearance give 
A weak old man to see the light and live ! " 

" Move me no more/' Achilles thus replies, 
While kindling anger sparkled in his eyes, 
" Nor seek by tears my steady soul to bend ; 
To yield thy Hector I myself intend : 
For know, from Jove my goddess-mother came 

7io (Old Ocean's daughter, silver-footed dame) ; 

Nor com'st thou but by heav'n ; nor com'st alone ; 
Some god impels with courage not thy own : 
No human hand the weighty gates unbarr'd, 
Nor could the boldest of our youth have dar'd 
To pass our out-works, or elude the guard. 
Cease ; lest, neglectful of high Jove's command, 
I show thee, king ! thou tread'st on hostile land ; 
Release my knees, thy suppliant arts give o'er, 



BOOK XXIV. 117 

And shake the purpose of rny soul no more." 

The sire obeyed him, trembling and o'eraw'd. 720 

Achilles, like a lion, rush'd abroad ; 

Automedon and Alcimus attend, 

Whom most he honor'd since he lost his friend ; 

These to unyoke the mules and horses went, 

And led the hoary herald to the tent : 

Next, heap'd on high, the numerous presents bear 

(Great Hector's ransom) from the polished car. 

Two splendid mantles, and a carpet spread, 

They leave, to cover and inwrap the dead : 

Then call the handmaids, with assistant toil . 730 

To wash the body, and anoint with oil, 

Apart from Priam ; lest th' unhappy sire, 

Provok'd to passion, once more rouse to ire 

The stern Pelides ; and nor sacred age 

Nor Jove's command should check the rising rage. 

This done, the garments o'er the corse they spread ; 

Achilles lifts it to the fun'ral bed : 

Then, while the body on the car they laid, 

He groans, and calls on lov'd Patroclus' shade : 

" If, in that gloom which never light must know, 740 

The deeds of mortals touch the ghosts below ; 

friend ! forgive me, that I thus fulfil 

(Restoring Hector) heaven's unquestion'd will. 

The gifts the father gave, be ever thine, 



118 POPE'S ILIAD. 

To grace thy manes, and adorn thy shrine. " 

He said, and, entering, took his seat of state, 
Where full before him reverend Priam sate : 
To whom, composed, the godlike chief begun : 
" Lo ! to thy pray'r restored, thy breathless son ; 

750 Extended on the fun'ral couch he lies ; 

And, soon as morning paints the eastern skies, 

The sight is granted to thy longing eyes. 

But now the peaceful hours of sacred night 

Demand refection, and to rest invite : 

Nor thou, father ! thus consumed with woe, 

The common cares that nourish life forego. 

Not thus did Niobe, of form divine, 

A parent once, whose sorrows equalled thine : 

Six youthful sons, as many blooming maids, 

760 In one sad day beheld the Stygian shades : 
Those by Apollo's silver bow were slain, 
These Cynthia's arrows stretch'd upon the plain. 
So was her pride chastised by wrath divine, 
Who matched her own with bright Latona's line ; 
But two the goddess, twelve the queen enjoy' d ; 
Those boasted twelve th ? avenging two destroyed. 
Steep'd in their blood, and in the dust outspread, 
Nine days neglected lay exposed the dead ; 
None by to weep them, to inhume them none 

770 (For Jove had turn'd the nation all to stone) : 



780 



BOOK XXIV. 119 



The gods themselves, at length, relenting, gave 
Th ? unhappy race the honors of a grave. 
Herself a rock (for such was heavVs high will) 
Thro' deserts wild now pours a weeping rill ; 
Where round the bed whence Acheloiis springs, 
The wat'ry fairies dance in mazy rings : 
There, high on Sipylus's shady brow, 
She stands, her own sad monument of woe ; 
The rock for ever lasts, the tears for ever flow. 
Such griefs, king ! have other parents known : 
Remember theirs, and mitigate thy own. 
The care of heav'n thy Hector has appeared ; 
Nor shall he lie unwept and uninterr'd ; 
Soon may thy aged cheeks in tears be drown 7 d, 
And all the eyes of Ilion stream around." 

He said, and, rising, chose the victim ewe 
With silver fleece, which his attendants slew. 
The limbs they sever from the reeking hide, 
With skill prepare them, and in parts divide : 
Each on the coals the separate morsels lays, 
And hasty snatches from the rising blaze. 
With bread the glitt'ring canisters they load, 
Which round the board Automedon bestow' d : 
The chief himself to each his portion plac'd, 
And each indulging shar'd in sweet repast. 
When now the rage of hunger was repressed, 



790 



120 POPE 'S ILIAD. 

The wondering hero eyes his royal guest ; 
No less the royal guest the hero eyes, 
His godlike aspect and majestic size ; 

800 Here youthful grace and noble fire engage, 
And there the mild benevolence of age. 
Thus gazing long, the silence neither broke 
(A solemn scene !) ; at length the father spoke : 

" Permit me now, belov'd of Jove, to steep 
My careful temples in the dew of sleep : 
For since the day that numbered with the dead 
My hapless son, the dust has been my bed ; 
Soft sleep a stranger to my weeping eyes, 
My only food, my sorrows and my sighs ! 

8io Till now, encouraged by the grace you give, 
I share thy banquet, and consent to live." 

With that, Achilles bade prepare the bed, 
With purple soft and shaggy carpets spread ; 
Forth, by the flaming lights, they bend their way, 
And place the couches, and the coverings lay. 
Then he : " Now, father, sleep, but sleep not here ; 
Consult thy safety, and forgive my fear, 
Lest any Argive (at this hour awake, 
To ask our counsel or our orders take), 

820 Approaching sudden to our open tent, 

Perchance behold thee, and our grace prevent. 
Should such report thy honor' d person here, 



BOOK XXIV. 121 

The king of men the ransom might defer. 
But say with speed, if aught of thy desire 
Eemains unasked, what time the rites require 
T' inter thy Hector. For, so long we stay 
Our slaughtering arm, and bid the hosts obey." 

" If then thy will permit/' the monarch said, 
" To finish all due honors to the dead, 
This, of thy grace, accord : to thee are known 830 

The fears of Ilion, clos'd within her town ; 
And at what distance from our walls aspire 
The hills of Ide, and forests for the fire. 
Nine days to vent our sorrows I request, 
The tenth shall see the fun'ral and the feast ; 
The next, to raise his monument be giv'n ; 
The twelfth we war, if war be doom'd by heav'n ! " 

" This thy request/' replied the chief, " enjoy: 
Till then our arms sjispend the fall of Troy." 
Then gave his hand at parting, to prevent 840 

The old man's fears, and turn'd within the tent ; 
Where fair Briseis, bright in blooming charms, 
Expects her hero with desiring arms. 
But in the porch the king and herald rest, 
Sad dreams of care yet wand'ring in their breast. 

ISTow gods and men the gifts of sleep partake ; 
Industrious Hermes only was awake, 
The king's return revolving in his mind, 



122 POPE'S ILIAD. 

To pass the ramparts and the watch to blind. 
850 The pow'r descending hover' d o'er his head, 

And, " Sleep'st thou, father ? " (thus the vision said) 

" Now dost thou sleep, when Hector is restor'd ? 

Nor fear the Grecian foes or Grecian lord ? 

Thy presence here should stern Atrides see, 

Thy still-surviving sons may sue for thee ; 

May offer all thy treasures yet contain, 

To spare thy age ; and offer all in vain." 

Wak'd with the word, the trembling sire arose, 

And rais'd his friend : the god before him goes : 
860 He joins the mules, directs them with his hand, 

And moves in silence thro' the hostile land. 

When now to Xanthus' yellow stream they drove 

(Xanthus, immortal progeny of Jove), 

The winged deity forsook their view, 

And in a moment to Olympus flew. 

Now shed Aurora round her saffron ray, 

Sprung thro' the gates of light, and gave the day. 

Charg'd with their mournful load, to Ilion go 

The sage and king, majestically slow. 
870 Cassandra first beholds, from Ilion's spire, 

The sad procession of her hoary sire ; 

Then, as the pensive pomp advanced more near 

(Her breathless brother stretch' d upon the bier) ? 

A show'r of tears overflows her beauteous eyes, 



BOOK XXIV. 123 

Alarming thus all Ilion with her cries : 

" Turn here your steps, and here your eyes employ, 
Ye wretched daughters and ye sons of Troy ! 
If e'er ye rush'd in crowds, with vast delight, 
To hail your hero glorious from the fight ; 
Now meet him dead, and let your sorrows flow ! 880 

Your common triumph and your common woe." 

In thronging crowds they issue to the plains, 
Nor man nor woman in the walls remains : 
In ev'ry face the self -same grief is shown, 
And Troy sends forth one universal groan. 
At Scsea's gates, they meet the mourning wain, 
Hang on the wheels, and grovel round the slain. 
The wife and mother, frantic with despair, 
Kiss his pale cheek, and rend their scattered hair ; 
Thus wildly wailing, at the gates they lay ; 890 

And there had sigh' d and sorrow'd out the day ; 
But godlike Priam from the chariot rose : 
" Eorbear," he cried, " this violence of woes ; 
First to the palace let the car proceed, 
Then pour your boundless sorrows o'er the dead." 

The waves of people at this word divide ; 
Slow rolls the chariot thro' the following tide : 
Ev'n to the palace the sad pomp they wait : 
They weep, and place him on the bed of state. 
A melancholy choir attend around, 900 



124 POPE'S ILIAD. 

With plaintive sighs and music's solemn sound : 
Alternately they sing, alternate flow 
Th' obedient tears, melodious in their woe ; 
While deeper sorrows groan from each full heart, 
And nature speaks at ev'ry pause of art. 

First to the corse the weeping consort flew ; 
Around his neck her milk-white arms she threw : 
And, " my Hector ! my lord ! " she cries, 
" Snatch' d in thy bloom from these desiring eyes ! 

910 Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone ! 
And I abandon' d, desolate, alone ! 
An only son, once comfort of our pains, 
Sad product now of hapless love remains ! 
Never to manly age that son shall rise, 
Or with increasing graces glad my eyes ; 
For Ilion now (her great defender slain) 
Shall sink, a smoking ruin, on the plain. 
Who now protects her wives with guardian care ? 
Who saves her infants from the rage of war ? 

920 Now hostile fleets must waft those infants o'er 
(Those wives must wait 'em) to a foreign shore ! 
Thou too, my son ! to barb'rous climes shalt go, 
The sad companion of thy mother's woe; 
Driv'n hence a slave before the victor's sword, 
Condemn'd to toil for some inhuman lord : 
Or else some Greek, whose father press'd the plain, 



BOOK XXIV. 125 

Or son, or "brother, by great Hector slain, 

In Hector's blood his vengeance shall enjoy, 

And hurl thee headlong from the tow'rs of Troy. 

For thy stern father never spar'd a foe : 930 

Thence all these tears, and all this scene of woe ! 

Thence many evils his sad parents bore; 

His parents many, but his consort more. 

Why gav'st thou not to me thy dying hand ? 

And why received not I thy last command ? 

Some word thou would'st have spoke, which, sadly 

dear, 
My soul might keep, or utter with a tear ; 
Which never, never could be lost in air, 
Fix'd in my heart, and oft repeated there ! " 

Thus to her weeping maids she makes her moan : 940 
Her weeping handmaids echo groan for groan. 

The mournful mother next sustains her part : 
" thou, the best, the dearest of my heart ! 
Of all my race thou most by heav'n approved, 
And by th' immortals ev'n in death belov'd ! 
While all my other sons in barb'rous -bands 
Achilles bound, and sold to foreign lands, 
This felt no chains, but went, a glorious ghost, 
Free and a hero, to the Stygian coast. 
Sentenced, 'tis true, by his inhuman doom, 950 

Thy noble corse was dragg'd around the tomb 



126 POPE'S ILIAD. 

(The tomb of him thy warlike arm had slain); 

Ungen'rous insult, impotent and vain ! 

Yet glow'st thou fresh with ev'ry living grace, 

No mark of pain, or violence of face; 

Rosy and fair ! as Phoebus' silver bow 

Dismissed thee gently to the shades below ! " 

Thus spoke the dame, and melted into tears. 
Sad Helen next in pomp of grief appears : 

960 Fast from the shining sluices of her eyes 

Fall the round crystal drops, while thus she cries : 
" Ah, dearest friend ! in whom the gods had join'd 
The mildest manners with the bravest mind ! 
Now twice ten years (unhappy years) are o'er 
Since Paris brought me to the Trojan shore 
(Oh had I perish'd, ere that form divine 
Seduc'd this soft, this easy heart of mine ! ) ; 
Yet was it ne'er my fate from thee to find 
A deed ungentle, or a word unkind : 

970 When others curs' d the auth'ress of their woe, 
Thy pity check'd my sorrows in their flow : 
If some proud brother ey'd me with disdain, 
Or scornful sister with her sweeping train, 
Thy gentle accents soften'd all my pain. 
For thee I mourn : and mourn myself in thee, 
The wretched source of all this misery ! 
The fate I caus'd, for ever I bemoan ; 



book xxir. 127 

Sad Helen has no friend, now thou art gone ! 

Thro' Troy's wide streets abandoned shall I roam, 

In Troy deserted, as abhorr'd at home ! " 98o 

So spoke the fair, with sorrow-streaming eye 
Distressful beauty melts each stander-by ; 
On all around th' infectious sorrow grows , 
But Priam check' d the torrent as it rose : 
"Perform, ye Trojans ! what the rites require, 
And fell the forests for a fun'ral pyre : 
Twelve days nor foes nor secret ambush dread ; 
Achilles grants these honors to the dead." 

He spoke ; and at his word the Trojan train 
Their mules and oxen harness to the wain, 990 

Pour thro' the gates, and, fell'd from Ida's crown, 
Roll back the gather' d forests to the town. 
These toils continue nine succeeding days, 
And high in air a sylvan structure raise. 
But when the tenth fair morn began to shine, 
Forth to the pile was borne the man divine, 
And plac'd aloft : while all, with streaming eyes, 
Beheld the flames and rolling smokes arise. 

Soon as Aurora, daughter of the dawn, 
With rosy lustre streak'd the dewy lawn, 1000 

Again the mournful crowds surround the pyre, 
And quench with wine the yet-remaining fire. 
The snowy bones his friends and brothers place 



128 POPE'S ILIAD. 

(With tears collected) in a golden vase; 
The golden vase in purple palls they rolPd, 
Of softest texture and inwrought with gold. 
Last, o'er the urn the sacred earth they spread, 
And rais'd the tomb, memorial of the dead 
(Strong guards and spies, till all the rites were done 
1010 Watch'd from the rising to the setting sun). 
All Troy then moves to Priam's court again, 
A solemn, silent, melancholy train : 
Assembled there, from pious toil they rest, 
And sadly shar'd the last sepulchral feast. 

Such honors Ilion to her hero paid, 
And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade. 



NOTES. 



Iliad: poem about Ilios, or Ilion (Troy). Cf. Virgil's 
Mneid, poem about JEneas ; aud Pope's own Dunciad, poem 
about dunces. 

" The subject of the poem is one chapter of events in the 
ten years' siege of Troy by the Greeks. Paris (also called 
Alexander), son of Priam, king of Troy, had carried off 
Helen, the fairest of women, wife of Menelaus, king of 
Sparta. Helen had been wooed by many suitors, and her 
father, Tyndareus, had bound them all by an oath to join 
in avenging that man whom she should marry, if she were 
taken from him by force. So Agamemnon, king of Mycense, 
called together these suitors and other chieftains, from all 
parts of Greece, and they sailed with many ships to besiege 
Troy. For ten years they besieged it in vain, though the 
Trojans dared not come out and fight pitched battles; for 
there was a hero in the Greek army so terrible that not even 
Hector, the greatest of the Trojan warriors, could stand 
before him. This hero was Achilles, whom the sea-goddess 
Thetis had borne to Peleus, king of Phthiotis, in Thessaly. 
But at last, in the tenth year of the siege, Achilles suffered 
a grievous affront from the king, Agamemnon, who took 
away from him his prize, the captive damsel Brisei's. Then 
Achilles was angry, and said that he would fight for the 
Greeks no more, and withdrew from the army to his tent 
by the seashore. 

129 



130 POPE'S ILIAD. 

" This is the moment at which the Iliad begins, * Sing, 
goddess, the wrath of Achilles.' The Wrath of Achilles — 
what it did, and how at last it was turned away — is the 
central subject of the Iliad. But this subject is so treated 
as to make a general picture of the whole siege during a 
few days of its tenth and last year, when Troy was about 
to fall. The first result of Achilles' refusing to fight was, 
that the Trojans now dared to come forth and give battle 
to the Greeks. The Iliad is in twenty-four books. The first 
fifteen of these are taken up with the story of the wavering 
strife; how victory leaned now this way, now that; how 
some Greek hero slew a Trojan hero, hand to hand, or a 
Trojan slew a Greek; how the gods and goddesses them- 
selves took this or that side in the fray. But at last the 
Greeks are hard pressed. Then Patroclus, the friend of 
Achilles, pleads with him: '0 dreadful in thy prowess! 
What good will any oue have of thee in days to come, 
unless thon turn away foul ruin from the Greeks ? ' Still 
Achilles will not fight. But he lends his armor to Patroclus, 
so that his friend may be taken for him, and allows him to 
lead forth his followers, the Myrmidons. Patroclus is slain 
by Hector. Then, at last, Achilles is roused. He rushes to 
the field, drives the Trojans within their walls, and slays 
Hector, the last hope of Troy, and drags his body, tied to 
his chariot, back to the ships. The Iliad ends with King 
Priam coming to ask the body of his slain son from Achilles. 
1 I have borne,' the old man says, ' what no one on earth has 
ever borne — to lift to my lips the hands of the man who 
has slain my son.' Achilles grants his prayer, and there is 
a truce while the people of Troy pay the last rites to 
Hector."-— Jebb. 



NOTES. I3i 



BOOK I. 

The first book serves as a kind of introduction to the 
whole poem. It tells of the strife between Achilles and 
Agamemnon, and of the decree Zeus made in Achilles' behalf 
at the intercession of Thetis. 

Lines 1-8. These lines are a sort of proem or prelude, 
like the overture to a symphony, stating * in full' the theme 
of the poem, as the first word of the original, fiTjvtv (wrath, 
lasting anger), states it 'in little.' Nearly all epics begin 
in this way. Cf. the beginning of the Odyssey, " The man, 
O muse, tell me about; " and of the Mneid, "Arms and the 
man, I sing." 

2. unnumber'd : Elision was a characteristic feature of 
most poetry in Pope's time, and was common even in prose. 
goddess : the Muse, whose aid the poet invokes. Though 
Homer sometimes speaks of the Muses in the plural, the 
conception of them as nine, each with a special office, is 
post-Homeric. The Odyssey and most literary epics open 
with a similar invocation. 

3. reign: realm. See Introd., p. xviii. 

5. unburied : the souls of the dead were supposed to 
wander on this side Styx (a river flowing round the under- 
world) until their bodies received burial. 

6. vultures: see Introd., p. xviii. 

7. Atrides : patronymic for Agamemnon, son of Atreus. 
The termination ides, like the English son (Johnson), and the 
prefix 0' in Irish and Mac in Scotch, signifies son of, as is 
does daughter of. Thus Achilles is called Pelides, son of 
Peleus; and Diomed, Tydides, son of Tydeus. Menelaus 
was, of course, also called Atrides. 



132 POPE'S ILIAD. 

strove : the strife, described below, which gave rise to 
" Achilles' wrath." 

8. Note the heavy, ' clinching' effect of the Alexandrine 
which closes the proem. 

The verse means that the consequences of Achilles' wrath 
fulfilled the will of Jove. 

As Pope uses both the Latin and the Greek names of the 
gods, both forms are given here, the Greek name stand- 
ing first: Cronos, Saturn; Zeus, Jupiter (Jove); Hades, 
Pluto; Poseidon, Neptune; Ares, Mars; Hephaestus, Vul- 
can; Phoebus Apollo, Apollo ; Hermes, Mercury; Dionysus, 
Bacchus; Hera, Juno; Pallas- Athena, Minerva; Aphrodite, 
Venus; Artemis, Diana. 

9. The poem here plunges at once into the midst of the 
story, past events being narrated incidentally. The Odyssey 
also begins in the thick of events, but reveals the past 
differently; the earlier adventures are told in direct sequence 
by the hero himself, who does not begin until Book IX. 
Paradise Lost, like Virgil's JEneid, follows this latter method 
of stimulating interest; and, in our time, it has become 
almost a professional trick of novelists. Its great danger 
lies in the tendency to emphasize the mere story, whether 
of mystery or adventure, at the expense of character and 
expression of life. 

11. Latona's son: Apollo. Latona is the Latin for the 
Greek Leto. 

13. k'Og of men: a standing epithet for Agamemnon as 
commander-in-chief of the allied armies. 

13. his rev'rend priest: Chryses, mentioned in 1. 15. 

16. In the Iliad, as in many great poems, the fatal beauty 
of woman is an important theme. Thus Helen caused the 



Book I. NOTES. 133 

war, and Chryseis occasioned the plague and quarrel, as the 
seizure of Briseis did the ' wrath.' 

18. awful ensigns : awe-inspiring insignia, or emblems 
of office. 

20. A variation from Homer, who says Chryses bore ' the 
fillet of Apollo, the Far-darter, upon a golden sceptre." 
" The woollen fillet wound round a staff was at all periods 
of Greek history the mark of the suppliant. It is, perhaps, 
the same fillet which the priest usually wears on his head 
in sign of his divine office." — Leaf. 

The 'laurel' mentioned by Pope was sacred to Apollo. 

22. brother kings: Agamemnon and Menelaus. 

23-30. A passage essentially Greek in its politic and prac- 
tical spirit. In five lines of the original, Chryses artfully 
alludes to the Greeks as made up of kindred races, some 
monarchical, some democratic; he prays for their success in 
their common enterprise against Troy; then he names his 
petition and the ransom he will give; and finally bids thera 
beware of the wrath of Apollo. He thus combines swiftly, 
into one strong effect, a tribute to the manifold power of 
the army, and an appeal to their interest, their religion, and 
their fears. A passage that exhibits well Homer's easy 
swiftness. 

23. vows : to win back Helen for Menelaus. 
28. Chryseis: see 1. 7. 

30. Phoebus: 'the bright'; in Homer an epithet of 
Apollo, and occasionally a proper noun for him. 

32. the fair: see Introcl., p. xxiii. 

34. Agamemnon here violates his duty, both to Apollo 
and to the army. 

43. labors of the loom : weaving was a favorite occupa- 
tion of Homeric women. 



134 POPE'S ILIAD. 

45. Argos : the chief city of the Peloponnesus; but here, 
as usual, it designates the whole country. 

50. Why is Chryses' sileuce ' golden,' as regards dra- 
matic expressiveness ? 

Pope says of the original: "The melancholy flowing of 
the verse admirably expresses the condition of a mournful 
and deserted father." 

52. An amplification of Homer's "Apollo, the Far-darter." 
Though Apollo was not identified with the sun until a later 
period, the beneficent and disastrous effects of light were 
ascribed to him; as were, on the one hand, cures and heal- 
ing, and, on the other, plagues and deaths from sudden and 
invisible causes. As his weapons for producing ill results 
were his arrows, he is also the god of archery. Oracular 
power was naturally identified with these attributes, for the 
agent of such disasters must have fore-knowledge of them 
and many other things. With prophecy, song has always 
been identified; Apollo is, therefore, also the god of music. 
He is thus closely associated with (1) the effects of light, 
(2) pestilence (which often arises from drought, heat, and 
other effects of the sun's rays), (3) sudden death, (4) the 
healing arts, (5; archery, (6) soothsaying, and (7) music. 
Most of his powers are wide-reaching in effect, and work 
stealthily; hence, his epithets, Far-darter and Far-worker 
seem peculiarly appropriate. 

53. Smintheus : literally,' field-mouse ' ; a title applied to 
Apollo, perhaps to honor him as the destroyer of that pest' 
of grain-fields. 

54-6. Cilia and Chrysa were small towns near Troy. 
Tenedos was a neighboring island. 

64, 67-68. Alliterative and onomatopoetic effects, of 



Book I. NOTES. 135 

which Pope is very fond. He here imitates the twang of 
the silver bow and the sound of the arrows. A similar 
attempt by Cowper resulted almost ludicrously,— 

" Clang' d the cord 
Dread-sounding, bounding on the silver bow " 

Cf . Shakespere's Lear, IV. vi. 20, 

" The murmuring surge, 
That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes." 

and Swinburne's, Atalanta in Calydon, — 

" The lisp of leaves 
And the ripple of rain." 

The arrow and ornaments of the gods are usually of gold ; 
but Apollo, as god of light, bears the white (silver) bow. 

64. The original has an onomatopoetic effect, like that of 
the word ' shook,' in Milton's lines : 

" Over them triumphant death his dart 
Shook, but delayed to strike." 

65-6. "The moon 

In dim eclipse disastrous twilight sheds 
On half the nations." 

Miltox, P. L., I. 596. 

Homer has, in keeping with the mystery and stealth of 
one phase of Apollo's character, the words, " And he 
descended like the night." Elsewhere (Book XII. 462) 
Homer says, "Hector rushed in, like in countenance to 
swift night." 

68. feather'd fates : arrows bringing the fate of death. 

69. " It has frequently been observed," says Pope, " that 
most pestilences begin with animals," 



136 POPE'S ILIAD. 

71—2. " Yet from those flames 

No light, but rather darkness visible 
Served only to discover sights of woe." 

Milton, P. L., I. 62. 

Contrast the glory which — 

" Circled Una's face 
And made a sunshine in the shady place." 

Spenser. 

72. pyres : the Greeks cremated their dead. 

Lessing: "Wrathful with bow and quiver, Apollo de- 
scends from the Olympian towers. I not only see him, but 
hear him. At every step the arrows rattle on tti3 shoulders 
of the angry god. He enters among the host like the night. 
Now he seats himself over against the ships, and with a 
terrible clang of the silver bow, sends his first shaft against 
the mules and dogs. Next he turns his contagions darts 
upon the warriors themselves, and unceasing blaze on every 
side the corpse-laden pyres. It is impossible to translate 
in any other language the musical painting heard in the 
poet's words." 

74 o Juno : the sister and wife of Zeus ; she is an un- 
scrupulous partisan of the Greeks. 

75. In his very first act, Achilles appears as the champion 
of the public welfare. 

council: the Agora, described in the Introd., p. lix. 

82. Assonance, in place of rhyme, is frequent in Pope. 
It is not necessarily a fault, since it is often a pleasing 
variation to 'jigging rhymes.' Some of the seeminlgy bad 
rhymes of Pope are clue to differences in pronunciation 
between our time and his. Thus 'tea' was pronounced 
' fray,' and rhymed with ' obey.' Cf, note on 1, 371, 



Book I. NOTES. 137 

88. hecatomb : literally, ' a sacrifice of a hundred oxen',' 
but applied generally to any great sacrifice of animals. 

89. aton'd : reconciled. Note the original meaning, ' at- 
one.' 

92. Calchas was a warrior as well as a soothsayer. 
Divination is the special gift of Apollo, as song is of the 
Muses. 

100. Calchas 1 appeal is honorable to Achilles in several 
ways ; it recognizes him as a prominent warrior, a powerful 
upholder of public rights, and a man of his word. From the 
start, Achilles towers above Agamemnon in most respects, 
though we must always remember the extrinsic dignity 
Agamemnon has as ' king of men,' and his intrinsic merit 
as a politic commander. 

102. Calchas knows that what he has to say will offend 
Agamemnon. 

105-6. The original expresses naively, deep insight into 
the baser part of human nature. " A king is of more might 
when he is wroth with a meaner man ; even though for the 
one day he swallow his anger, yet doth he still keep his dis- 
pleasure thereafter in his breast, till he accomplish it." 

110. Achilles may suspect the plague is due in some way 
to Agamemnon. At any rate, his oath binds him to uphold 
Calchas. 

117. blameless: the word, in Homer, means simply fault- 
less in externals, as in lineage, manners, personal appear- 
ance, etc. 

124. black-ey'd : the original probably designates not 
color, but sparkling vivacity of look ; hence, recent trans- 
lators use such epithets as ' bright-eyed' or ' quick-glancing.' 

130. Agamemnon here is certainly not the gracious and 



138 POPE'S ILIAD. 

dignified king, of JEschylus. In this book, however, we see 
him only at his worst, — sneering, taunting, arbitrary, self- 
ish. But, like every Homeric hero, he has also his virtues. 
When disaster overtakes the army, he appears to especial 
advantage — a resourceful, courageous, kindly commander- 
in-chief. See particularly Book VI., which takes its name 
from him. His conduct towards Achilles, after the recon- 
ciliation, is almost as magnanimous as here it is mean. 
Note also his strong affection for Menelaus, his brother, 
who seems to rely on him. But, even if we should view 
him as not morally noble, he still is, like Macbeth, vastly 
significant. Homer and Shakspere both treat the children of 
their imagination — all but the very worst — with a large and 
sympathetic insight. Thus even Iago, whose satanic na- 
ture Shakspere certainly does not approve, is portrayed with 
sympathy of comprehension, if not with that of fellow-feel- 
ing. Agamemnon benefits by this large and human treat- 
ment. Like Macbeth, he becomes an important, if not a 
noble, type ; and has about him the touch of nature that wins 
upon us, — that makes the whole world kin. Though per- 
haps a thorough and rapacious politician, and subdued to 
what he works in, he is also thoroughly human. Moreover, 
just as a weak character, like Richard II., becomes signifi- 
cant in a momentous situation, Agamemnon, who is not 
weak, and who operates as ' king-of-men ' on a grand scale, 
appeals to our insight and imagination, when he does not to 
our better feelings. Cf. also Milton's Satan. 

141. Chryseis' captivity is a short one, and ends with the 
pleasant pictures of her homeward voyage and her restora- 
tion to her father's arms. 

Homer is almost unrivalled in the brief but life-like 



Book I. NOTES. 139 

sketches of the characters who pass in and ont of the 
story, and help to fill in its background. 

143. Clytaemnestra. His wife. The audience would at 
once recall that she, with her paramour, murdered Agamem- 
non upon his return home, and that he was avenged by their 
son, Orestes. Several of the greatest tragedies of the classic 
period were based upon this story and the legends sur- 
rounding it. 

150. Agamemnon has implied that the proceedings are 
prompted by personal spite against him. With the skilful 
duplicity of a politician, he assumes the air of injured inno- 
cence, and pleads the public welfare while actually vio- 
lating it : "The public is wronging me, not I them." But 
he says no word about his notorious slight to the priest. 

154. " Agamemnon's demand for a fresh prize of honor 
is not mere covetousness, though Achilles in his retort makes 
out that it is. . . . For it is clear throughout the Iliad that 
it is in the public gifts, which are the signs of preeminence, 
that the point of honor lies ; to lose such a meed of honor 
is a disgrace as well as a material loss. . . . This should 
be kept in view throughout the Iliad." — Leaf. 

155. Here Achilles begins to do wrong. But contrast 
the motives of the two men. Agamemnon, with ill intent, 
does ill ; Achilles, with good intent, likewise does ill, through 
his impetuousness and pride. In the end he is punished and 
chastened for these faults, and when we take leave of him 
we see the ' depth ' and not the ' tumult' of his soul. 

170. A charge most hateful to the open-minded Achilles. 

177-8. Ajax was the cousin of Achilles. Because of his 
vast stature and strength, and his warlike spirit, he was 
next to Achilles in might, the bravest in defence, as Diomed 



140 POPE'S ILIAD. 

was in attack. Ulysses was the wisest and most inventive 
of the chiefs, and the hero of the Odyssey. Agamemnon is 
indiscreet, to say the least, in needlessly asserting that he 
has arbitrary power over the best three men in the army. 

185. Black ships is a standing phrase in Homer. 

187. Creta's king. Idomeneus, one of the best and oldest 
of the Greek chiefs. 

190. A mean threat. If Achilles should be forced to go 
on this distasteful errand, Agamemnon would be free to 
seize Brisei's. That Achilles understands the taunt, his next 
words show. 

198. form an ambush. One of the most dangerous and 
honorable tests of a warrior's courage. 

201. Phthia. The chief city of Thessaly, land of 
Achilles. 

203. There is, perhaps, at least to a modern reader, a cer- 
tain pathos in Achilles' description of far-away Phthia, like 
that in Dante's references, when on his ' long journey ' 
through Hell and Purgatory to our world ' ' beyond the 
mighty wave." 

219. " An ill-favored thing, sir, but mine own." 

As You Like It, V. iv. 60. 

221. This must not be looked upon as a wrongful de- 
sertion. Achilles, like the Christian crusaders, had the 
right, when outraged, to withdraw from a voluntary league. 
In fact, Homeric honor probably necessitated such with- 
drawal. 

228. The unconscious irony of these words is evident in 
the light of subsequent events, especially Jove's decree in 
behalf of Achilles 



Book I. NOTES, 141 

For the duties and limitation of Homeric kingship, see 
Introd., p. lviii. 

It will be well to remember here Achilles' unswerving 
piety to the gods. 

232. Agamemnon now throws the whole blame for the 
quarrel on Achilles. 

239. Myrmidons. The fierce, warlike subjects of 
Achilles. Note the accord of their character with his. 
See Introd., p. xxxvii. 

240. Contrast with Banquo's — 

11 Speak then to me who neither beg nor fear 
Your favors nor your hate." 

Macbeth. 

246. Homer uses only her patronymic, which but acids to 
the casualness and naturalness of the beautiful silhouette he 
gives of her. In the sack of Troy, her husband and three 
brothers had been slain. 

252. " As with the tide swelled up unto his height, 

That makes a still-stand, running neither way." 

2 Hen. IV., II. iii. 63. 

" And as he who un wills what he willed, and because of 
new thoughts changes his design . . . ; such I became on 
that dark hillside." — Dante's Inferno, II. 37. 

261. Minerva (Athena) is in Homer the goddess of men- 
tal power and wisdom, of warlike prowess, and of skill in 
the arts of life. " As the anthropomorphic tracings are deep- 
est upon the Zeus of Homer, so they are the least legible 
upon Athena. She is a goddess, not a god; but she has 
nothing of the sex except the gender, nothing of the woman 
except the form, sublimated and made awful with fire 
flashing from the eye. She is a true impersonation of the 



142 POPE'S ILIAD. 

logos, or reason; not of abstract intuitions, but of an opera- 
tive understanding, which never errs in fitting means to 
ends." — Gladstone. She is a devoted patroness of the 
Greeks, more especially of Achilles in the Iliad, as of Odys- 
seus (Ulysses) in the Odyssey. Here she opposes Achilles' 
reason to his passion. " Throughout the Iliad, Athena is 
herself [as it were] the will, or Menis, of Achilles. If 
he is to be calmed, it is she who calms him; if angered, it 
is she who inflames him. In the first quarrel with Atrides, 
where he stands at pause with the great sword half drawn, 
1 Athena came from heaven and stood beside him, and 
caught him by the yellow hair.' Another god would have 
stayed his hand upon the hilt, but Athena only lifts his 
hair." — Ruskin. 

265. confess'd : revealed. To become invisible was part 
of the magic power of the gods. 

284. Win back your aid by the offer of gifts. 

290. Cf . Prov. xv. ; John ix. 31. 

298-9. The original verse leaps with impetuous fierceness. 
The Homeric chiefs pretend to no false modesty, but ' speak 
right out ' in plain words. Abusive epithets, like these 
Achilles surcharges with passion, Pope usually softens and 
conventionalizes for eighteenth century ears. Thus, when 
Homer likens Ajax's hardihood to that of an ass, Pope ' tact- 
fully' calls the ass "The slow beast with heavy strength 
endued." Dante, like Homer, often dignifies mean subjects 
by the expressive use he makes of them; sometimes — like 
Homer perhaps — not without a touch of grave humor. Cf. 
Purg. xxvi. 34. 

298. " But one part wisdom 

And ever three parts coward." 

Hamlet. 



Book I. NOTES. 143 

298. Insolent as a dog in bearing, but timid as a deer at 
heart. 

The dog fares hard in the Iliad; he is, as among 
oriental nations, the personification of shamelessness. In 
the Odyssey, he is in higher favor. Argus, the old hunting 
dog, — the only being who recognizes his master after his 
twenty years' absence, — is famous. The horse, on the other 
hand, is almost deified in the Iliad, but appears to less ad- 
vantage in the Odyssey. For the probable reasons, see Miss 
Alice Clerke's interesting and sympathetic Homeric Studies. 

309. sceptre: not Achilles' own, but one the heralds hand 
to a recognized speaker in token that he ' holds the floor.' 

Oaths by the sceptre as a symbol of power are frequent. 

11 Now, by my sceptre's awe, I make a vow." 

Richard II, I. i. 118. 

313. temper' d steel : axe. 

315. laws: not in our sense, but sacred traditions. See 
Introd., p. lix. 

324. The successive speeches of Achilles deepen in feel- 
ing and beauty of thought, and culminate, after the sudden 
descent of Athena from heaven, in the solemn forswearing 
of allegiance and its dread afterpause. There is a sugges- 
tion both of storm and of fleeting sunlight as the passions 
of the two chiefs gather and break, and are followed by 
Nestor's speech, persuasive and full of noble memories.. 
Compare with this scene Milton's council in Hell, where 
the debates rise to a steep and austere grandeur, but one 
which lacks Homer's naturalness, variety, and repose. 

330. Pylos was in the Peloponnesus. 

331. Nestor: the venerable " clear-voiced orator." In the 
Odyssey he is said to have reigned over three generations of 



144 POPE'S ILIAD. 

men. Compare his efficient wisdom with the futile saws of 
Polonius in Hamlet. 

332. "His tongue 

Dropt manna." 

Par. Lost, II. 112. 
"His look 
Drew audience and attention still as night 
Or summer's noontide air." 

Idem, II. 307. 

345. Nestor, like all Homeric men, speaks frankly of his 
own merits. 

347-350. Pirithous : king of the Lapithse, a mountain folk 
of Thessaly. At his weclcling-feast, one of the Centaurs (a 
wild tribe of men, later represented as half-man, half-horse), 
intoxicated with wine, carried off the bride, Hippodamia. 
In the famous war which followed, the Centaurs were 
beaten. It furnished subjects for mauy famous sculptures, 
notably those on the metopes of the south side of the Par- 
thenon at Athens. 

Dry as, Ceneus, and Polyphemus were Lapithae. The last 
must not be confused with Polyphemus, the one-eyed man- 
eating giant of the Odyssey. Theseus, the legendary hero of 
Athens, helped Pirithous against the Centaurs. 

355-7. A triplet, or three rhyming lines, instead of th^ 
usual couplet, a pleasing variation which appears a number 
of times in the poem. 

370. Nestor aptly points out to Agamemnon the wrong he 
is about to do, and to Achilles his fault of pride; at th» 
same time he justly compliments both men. Cf. Julius Cae- 
sar, IV. iii. 131. 

371. join'd : not a false rhyme; the word is still pro- 
nounced ' jined ' colloquially in some parts of the United 
States. 



Book I. NOTES. 145 

379. " There is no tongue that moves ; none, none i' the world 
That soon as yours, could win me." 

Winter's Tale. 

381. " Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world 

Like a Colossus." 

Julius Caesar, I. ii. 135. 

390. « Have you not set mine honor at the stake, 

And hated it with all the unmuzzled thoughts 
That tyrannous heart can think ? " 

Twelfth Night, III. i. 130. 

392. The original: " Know that not by violence will 1 
strive for the damsel's sake, neither with thee nor any other; 
ye gave and ye have taken away. But of all else that is 
mine beside my fleet black ship, thereof shalt thou not take 
anything or bear it away against my will." 

It is hard to see how, under the circumstances, and judged 
by the standard of Homeric ethics, Achilles could b3 fairer 
than this subtle discrimination shows him to be, even in the 
excess of his rage. 

395. Achilles refers also to Helen. Pope's idea, not 
Homer's. 

402. Patroclus was so well known to Homeric auditors 
from old stories or songs, that he needed no further descrip- 
tion here. The deep friendship between this gentle, brave, 
and chivalrous hero and Achilles is one of the most glorious 
things in literature. To avenge his comrade's death, met at 
the hands of Hector, Achilles ends his quarrel with Aga- 
memnon and sacrifices his own life. Compare with this 
friendship that of Hamlet and Horatio, Damon and Pythias, 
Jonathan and David, or Orestes and Pylades. 

404-8. This clear-cut picture in a few lines of the fleet 
ship speeding over the watery ways, together with that of 



146 POPE'S ILIAD. 

the rites of purification, and the brief one of the reverent 
approach of the heralds, begins the series of varied, and for 
the most part quiet, scenes, which make the second part of 
the book a fitting complement to the stormy first part. 

406. Pope alters the idea somewhat; in Homer, Aga- 
memnon ' ' brought Chryseis of the fair cheeks and set her 
therein (the ship)." 

Compare Pope's description with the sunny, breezy one 
at the opening of Canto II. of Scott's M> armion; and contrast 
it with Cleopatra's voyage, A. and C, II. ii. 192. 

410. " The meaning is that the Achaeans washed in the 
sea, so that it might carry off the defilement, which were typi- 
cal of their sin." Cf . 1 Sam. vii. 6. 

426-565. The scene shifts here, to give time for the voy- 
age of the embassy to Chrysa. 

432. Decent confusion : fitting hesitation. 

434. Note the grave earnestness of Achilles' speech here 
as compared with his hasty passionateness in the Assembly. 

435. Heralds had a special sanctity of person, and could 
travel where they pleased without molestation. 

445. " Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch 

Of the ranged empire fall." 

A. and C, I. i. 33. 

450, Just the opposite of Dante's famous Hues, Purg., 
II. 11, 12. 

453. Pope has amplified Homer: " And with them went 
the woman all unwilling." The leading away of Brisei's is 
the decisive point in the quarrel between the two chiefs. 
When she returns after their reconciliation, she finds Patro- 
clus, the ideal of gentle heroism, dead in Achilles' tent, and 



BookI. notes. 147 

her instant lament over him expresses at once her womanly 
tenderness and his manly sympathy. She is one of those 
swift, snre, human sketches of character for which Homer, 
like Shakespere, is famous. 

459. Homer's heroes, like Virgil's, give full play to nat- 
ural feelings. The northern temper of mind is different. 
Contrast Achilles' weeping here, and especially his complete 
abandonment to grief at the death of Patroclus, with the 
silent but heart-breaking sorrow of Macduff. Cf . also the 
last speeches of Othello. 

461. The doom refers to Achilles' choice. See Introd., 
p. xli. Achilles has already become " the type of triumphant 
youth . . . with sheer doom before his eyes." — Lang. 

474. Note the simple, motherly tenderness of Thetis as 
she soothes her son, and his childlike responsiveness. 

478. A small town in the Troad. 

479. Eetion: Andromache's father, slain by Achilles. 
484. A repetition of what has gone before, but very 

effective. It gives a resume of the crucial things in the 
disastrous quarrel, so that the auditor may not forget them. 
Its naivete and gentle pathos are irresistible. "A man in suf- 
fering finds relief in rehearsing his ills, and this recital was 
followed by the sympathy of the poet's hearers." — Seymour. 

508. That is, defrauds me of the prize allotted me by 
their votes. 

515. " This strange legend of the binding of Zeus is not 
known from other sources, nor is it again mentioned in 
Homer. . . . Nor do we find elsewhere in Homer any such 
monstrous conception as that of a being with a hundred 
hands." — Leaf. The nameBriareus (Heavyhanded) marks 
his strength and character. 



148 POPE* 8 ILIA1>. 

518-9. Hera, Athena, Poseidon. 

525. Poseidon is called " the earth shaker;" and all his 
sons, like himself, are strong and mighty. The original 
suggests the silent and grim satisfaction of Briareus as he 
sat down beside Zeus. Some critics think Briareus personi- 
fies the roar and might of the sea, as is suggested by his 
other name Aigaion, — Stormy. 

531. "Clasping the knees and touching the chin is the 
recognized attitude of the Greek suppliant." — Leaf. 

534. copious death : many dead bodies. 

551. Olympus : Introd., p, lxii. 

555. warm limits : Ocean us. See Introd., p. lvii. 

557. The ^Ethiopians dwelt in two widely-distant tribes 
on the edge of the world's disk, — one to the southeast, one 
to the southwest. In return for their far-famed piety, the 
gods often honored them with visits. 

560. brazen dome : the dome of Olympus as resplendent 
with burnished brass ; lit., " palace of the bronze threshold." 
The palaces of the gods were the handiwork of Hephaestus 
Cf. " and the floor of the house he overlaid with gold, within 
and without," 1 Kings vi. 30, of Solomon's temple Cf. 
also, Keats's description of the Olympian palaces in Hype- 
rion, Book I. 

565. Homer says : "he was vexed in spirit for the fair- 
girdled woman's sake, whom they had taken from him." 

576. dome: house or temple ; Latin, domus. 

586ff. A sacrifice to the gods was also a banquet to them 
and the sacrificers. "Barley meal is scattered on the vic- 
tim's head, that the gods may share in the fruits of the earth 
as well as in the meat. Slices from the thigh, as the best 
part, are wrapped in fat to make them burn, and thus ascend 



Book I. NOTES. 149 

in sweet savor to heaven. The sacrificers, after roasting 
the vitals, taste them as a symbolical sign that they are ac- 
tually eating with the gods. When this religious act has 
been done, the rest of the victim is consumed as a merely 
human meal." — Leaf. Cf. theiEneid, I. 210ff. 

609. Large flve-tined forks on which the vitals (heart, 
liver, lungs) were roasted. 

615-6. Heralds went about pouring a little wine into 
each cup, which the receiver at once poured upon the ground, 
as a libation to the gods. Then the cups were crowned 
(filled to the brim) for drinking. The custom of adorning 
the cups with flowers was of later date. 

636. "He betook him neither to the assembly that is the 
hero's glory, neither to war, but consumed his heart in tar- 
rying in his place, and yearned for the war-cry and the 
battle." Be sure to compare Othello, iii. 3, 347. 

671. Pope's rendering of the epithet, "cloud-gatherer." 

683-7. " Kronion spake and nodded his dark brow, and 
the ambrosial locks waved from the king's immortal head ; 
and he made great Olympus quake." 

" When a friend inquired of Phidias from what pattern 
he had formed his Olympian Jupiter, he is said to have 
answered by repeating these lines of the first Iliad, in which 
the poet represents the majesty of the god in the most sub- 
lime terms; thereby signifying that the genius of Homer 
had inspired him with it. Those who beheld this statue are 
said to have been so struck with it as to have asked whether 
Jupiter had descended from heaven to show himself to 
Phidias, or whether Phidias had been carried thitherto con- 
template the god." 



150 POPE'S ILIAD. 

" So was his will 
Pronounc'd among the gods, and by an path, 
That shook heav'n's whole circumference, confirm'd." 

Paradise Lost, ii. 351. 

684. Ambrosia and nectar were respectively the food 
and drink of the gods, and gave a divine beauty and vigor 
to those who partook of them. 

698. Zeus' disquietude as husband is in delightful con- 
trast to his sublimity as ruler. 

712. Homer calls her, Hera "the ox-eyed queen," liken- 
ing her eyes to those of an ox or heifer in respect to size, 
fulness, and majestic calm. 

714. Saturnius : son of Saturn (Kronos), ruler of heaven 
before Zeus. See Keats's fine description of the fallen 
monarch at the beginning of Hyperion. 

719. consult: consultation. 

731. Pope's philosophy, expanded in his Essay on Man. 

735. The gods are very human here, and hardly in the 
highest sense. Zeus is an angry husband, who answers his 
suspicious and ' nagging ' wife with an arbitrary threat of 
force. 

" This scene," says Mr. Leaf, " is typical of the spirit in 
which Homer treats the deities of Olympus. It is, to say 
the least, not reverent, and far removed from any concep- 
tion of primitive piety. It is, indeed, one among many 
signs that the civilization of the heroic age was old and not 
young, — a civilization which was outgrowing the simple 
faith of its ancestors." 

Mr. Leaf's explanation perhaps needs to be qualified. 
The conception the Odyssey gives us of the greater gods, 
especially Zeus, shows little decay in real religion. A 



Book I. NOTES. 151 

Homeric audience may have regarded the ways of the deities 
as past finding out, and believed that much was permitted 
to them that was not to men. Moreover, the petty wran- 
gling of human creatures is hardly a subject for heroic 
humor; that of the gods is. Then, too, a touch of grimness 
elevates all; Zeus' threats, though naive, are not wholly 
ludicrous. Finally, would the gods be complete and harmo- 
nious beings to a Greek, if they lacked the sense of humor ? 
The passage probably affected its Homeric auditors with the 
mixed feelings of surprise, amusement, and awe that a child 
has when he hears, for the first time, a dignified father and 
mother quarrelling about some trivial thing. 

753. double bowl : a bowl with a cup at each end, as in 
an hour-glass. 

760-5 . « < Him the Almighty Power 

Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky, 
With hideous ruin and combustion down 
To bottomless perdition." 

Milton, P. L., i. 44. 

See also Milton's superb imitation of Homer's lines in 
P. £., i- 740. 

Zeus, to punish Hera for persecuting his son, Heracles 
(Hercules), fastened anvils to her feet, and hung her from 
the sky. Hephaestos, attempting to aid her, was kicked 
down from Olympus. 

771. The laughable figure of the lame Vulcan as cup- 
bearer, in place of the graceful Ganymede, distracts atten- 
tion from the quarrel, and gives a cheerful character to the 
banquet. 

775. The Muses sing alternately, one relieving the other. 
Cf. Milton, Christmas Hymn^ 96. 



152 POPE'S ILIAD. 

The book, which opened in strife, ends in peace and with 
a vision of the 

<< World of light and bliss, among 
The gods who live at ease." 

Milton, P. L., ii. 867. 



BOOK VI. 

5 . Homer here names the Simois and the Xanthus ( which 
"men call Scamander"). They joined each other in the 
Trojan plain before flowing into the sea. 

9. falchion r the subject of found and hew'd. 

12. horsehair: the plume of horsehair on his helmet. 

14. Homer says, "and darkness shrouded his eyes." 

17. Arisbe : a town near Troy. 

22. A poor return in his hour of need for all his kind- 
ness. See Dante's famous eulogy of the hospitable Malas- 
pina. Purg., viii. 

24. servant : for " the driver of his chariot." The posi- 
tion, like that of the medieval squire, is not one of servility, 
but of honor. The charioteer oftentimes lights as a 
champion. 

The comments Homer is wont to make upon the dead stir 
us like the personal tributes to the fallen in a general's con- 
cise report of a battle, except that Homer mentions the 
beauty or former happiness of the dead as often as he does 
their valor. 

25. Homer shows unconscious partiality for the Greeks 
when he describes personal encounters. In spite of all his 
tributes to the vajor of the Trojans, we feel that he seldom 



Book VI. NOTES. 153 

shows them < in full swing.' Contrast the treatment of the 
enemy in the English and Scotch ballads. 

28. Naiad : the fountain-nymph Abarbarea. On the ten- 
dency of the Greeks to give every grove, stream, woodland 
haunt, etc., its presiding deity, and to put man and nature in 
sympathetic accord, see Leigh Hunt's essay on Ancient 
Mythology. 

37. Teucer: a renowned archer, son of Telamon, and 
step-brother of Ajax. 

38. Nestor* s son : Antilochus. 

42. An instance of that circumstantiality and pleasing 
casualness which makes Homer's narrative seem real. On 
this point, see De Quincey, Homer and the Homeridae, pp. 
158 ff. 

46. The spear of Menelaus, king of Sparta. 

49. tamarisk : not a tree, as Pope supposes, but a high 
shrub. Homer says the steeds broke the " car at the pole's 
foot," while " stumbling in a tamarisk's boughs." 

59. fame: the Latin fama. 

61. told : counted. Cf. to ' tell off' bricks, etc. 

62. Homer says " bronze, gold, and smithied iron." 
Money being unknown, trade was carried on by barter. 

64. suspended : in suspense. 

70. An ironical reminder to Menelaus of what he has suf- 
fered from the race he is about to spare. Agamemnon's 
cruelty contrasts with Menelaus's compassion, which seems 
to be regarded as an amiable weakness. As Pope says, the 
Old Testament abounds in similar acts of barbarity. 

74. A'typical picture of war in primitive times. 

85. son of Mars : a warrior. 

88. 'To the victor belongs the spoil. , 



154 POPE'S ILIAD. 

91. Helenus : one of Priam's many sons. 

93. iEneas : the bravest of the Trojan allies, and laterthe 
hero of Virgil's poem. It will be well to remember him by 
the Earl of Surrey's fine rendering of lines 431-4 of the 

" Ye Trojan ashes ! and last flames of mine ! 
I call in witness, that at your last fall 
I fled no stroke of any Greekish sword, 
And if the fates would I had fallen in fight, 
That with my hand, I did deserve it well." 

99. efforts : accent on the last syllable. 

113. mantle: the Greek peplos, a large, full robe, falling 
in rich folds, worn over the common dress. 

^135. Dardans : descendants of Dardanus, the founder of 
the house of Priam and iEneas ; hence a more inclusive term 
than Trojans. 

145. Note the length of the shield. The chief defensive 
equipment of a Homeric warrior consisted of a shield, usu- 
ally round; a helmet, surmounted by a plume; greaves made 
of soft metal ; and the mitra, a girdle of metal or plated with 
metal. His offensive equipment included a spear, hurled 
from the hand like the later javelin, a sword, mainly used 
(it seems) for thrusting, and a war-chariot. This last was 
a two-wheeled car with space for driver and warrior. It 
had a high rim in front and at the sides, but was open at the 
back, and drawn by two and sometimes three horses. 

146. The manner in which tlits episode is introduced is 
well illustrated by the following remarks of Mure, vol. i. p. 
298: "The poet's method of introducing his episode also 
illustrates in a curious manner his tact in the dramatic de- 
partment of his art. Where, for example, one or more 
heroes are despatched on some commission, to be executed 



Book VI. FOTES. 155 

at a certain distance of time or space, the fulfilment of this 
task is not, as a general rule, immediately described. A cer- 
tain interval is allowed them for reaching the appointed 
scene of action, which interval is dramatized, as it were, 
either by a temporary continuation of the previous narra- 
tive, or by fixing attention for a while on some new trans- 
action, at the close of which the further account of the 
mission is resumed." 

147. Quieter scenes now relieve those of carnage : first 
the parting of Diomed and Glaucus, illustrating the power 
of guest-frienclship, and last, the meeting and parting of 
Hector and Andromache, illustrating the sanctity of the mar- 
riage tie. Paris flits to and fro, — he who had violated both 
these bonds ; and, deeply as we sympathize with guilty Troy, 
he prevents our forgetting that she is guilty. Within these 
main digressions are several minor ones, and the whole 
forms a varied and delightful picture of the momentary 
peace that came with the lull in the war. On the scope, 
naturalness, and quiet pathos of such scenes, see Introduc- 
tion, p. xxxvi. 

148. Compare the two heroes of the splendid episode 
which follows. Homer's trait of sharply individualizing his 
characters is clearly indicated in the following quotation : 

"Fresh, direct, and noble, the Homeric mode of present- 
ing life has been singularly potent in tracing certain types 
of character which ever since have stood out clearly before 
the imagination of the world. Such, in the first place, are 
the heroes of the two epics — Achilles, the type of heroic 
might, violent in anger and in sorrow, capable also of chiv- 
alrous and tender compassion; Odysseus, the type of re- 
sourceful intelligence joined to heroic endurance, — one in 



156 POPE'S ILIAD. 

whom the power of Homer is seen even better, perhaps, 
than in Achilles, since the debased Odysseus of later Greek 
poetry never succeeded in effacing the nobler image of his 
Homeric original. Such, again, are the Homeric types of 
women, so remarkable for true and fine insight, — Andro- 
mache, the young wife and mother, who, in losing Hector, 
must lose all ; Penelope, loyal, under hard trial, to her long- 
absent lord ; the Helen of the Iliad, remorseful, clear-sighted, 
keenly sensitive to any kindness shown her at Troy ; the 
Helen of the Odyssey, restored to honor in her home at Sparta ; 
the maiden Nausicaa, so beautiful in the dawning promise 
of a noble womanhood, — perfect in her delicacy, her grace, 
and her generous courage. From Agamemnon to Thersites 
there is no prominent agent in the Homeric epic on whom 
Homer has not set the stamp of some quality which we can 
feel as distinctive. The divine types of character are marked 
as clearly, and in the same manner, as the human, — Zeus, 
the imperious but genial ruler of the Olympian family, — in- 
tolerant of competing might, but manageable through his 
affections or his appetites ; Hera, his wife, who never loses 
sight of her great aim — the advancement of the Greek cause 
— but whose sometimes mutinous petulance is tempered by 
a feminine perception of the point at which her lord's char- 
acter requires that she should take refuge in blandishments; 
Apollo, the minister of death, the prophet, active in uphold- 
ing the decrees of his father Zeus, and never at discord with 
him ; Athene, who, unlike her brother Apollo, is often op- 
posed to the purposes of Zeus, — at once a mighty goddess 
of war, and the goddess who presides over art and indus- 
try." (Jebb.) 

150. Single combats are frequent in warlike romances. 



Book VI. XOTES. 157 

See those in Scott's Lady of the Lake and Arnold's Sohrab 
and Rustum. For the mutual admiration of chivalrous foe- 
men, see Scott's account of the meeting of Richard I. and 
Saladiu in The Talisman. 

160. See Diomed's splendid exploits against the gods in 
Book V. 

161. Lycurgus : a Thracian king who excluded the wor- 
ship of Dionysus (Bacchus) from his land, and drove the 
god himself into the sea. In punishment he was blinded, 
and soon after lost his life. 

181. Cf. Psalms ciii. 14-16, and Wisdom of the Son of 
Sirach xiv. 18. 

191. Sisyphus: son of iEolus, and founder of Ephyre 
(the later Corinth). 

201. Antea: wife of Proteus. 

210. tablets : the original reads, " having scratched many 
life-destroying symbols (sijwara, characters or signs) , in a 
folded tablet." This passage has caused much discussion 
as to whether writing was known in Homeric times. Most 
commentators think it means no more than that certain pic- 
ture-signs, suggesting murder, were scratched on the inner 
side of the tablet. If known, letters were probably regarded 
as a magic thing, and so could not have been much in use. 
The attitude of many savages toward writing is about the 
same. See also the lay belief in the Middle Ages that Latin 
had mysterious powers, and was good for conjuring the 
devil up or away. 

214. After the Homeric host had shown full hospitality 
to a stranger-guest, then, and not before, he questioned him 
as to his name and errand. 

219-24. The Chimera was a fabulous, fire-spouting mon- 



158 POPE'S ILIAD. 

ster, and is fully described in the text. This is the only In- 
stance in Homer of the mixed beings with which later Greek 
mythology teems. His Sirens and even his Centaurs are 
wholly human in form. This absence of distorted gro- 
tesques is a strong evidence of the complete sanity of tjie 
Homeric imagination. Contrast oriental mythology in this 
respect, with its worship of monster deities. 
223. expire: breathe forth; the Latin sense. 

226. prodigies: portents. 

227. Solymaean crew : original inhabitants of Lycia, ex- 
pelled by the Lycians. 

229. Amazons: a fabled race of warrior women. 

242. Homer names them, Isandros, Hippolochos, and 
Laodamia. Another instance of that circumstantiality which 
gives the Iliad an atmosphere of reality. 

244. Sarpedon: son of Zeus, king of the Lycians, and a 
brave ally of the Trojans, killed by Patroclus. 

247. Bellerophon evidently became mad. Aleian field, 
4 the field of wandering,' or, perhaps, ' field where no harvest 
grows.' 

250. Phoebe : Artemis, Diana, twin-sister of Apollo. Like 
him she bears a bow, and is his counterpart in several re- 
spects, sending quiet death? to women as he does to men. 
Later she is identified with the moon, as he with the sun. 

251. That is, he was slain in battle. 

256-60. Pope adapts here, and worthily, famous lines of 
the original. 

262. To indicate his desire to cease hostilities. 

264-88. These lines express the essence of the noble idea 
of guest-friendship. 

274. Tyrian dye : royal purple ; far more crimson than 



Book VI. NOTES. 159 

blue. Pope expands, introducing Tyre and Tyriau pur- 
ple, neither of which was known to Homer, who says sim- 
ply, " Oineus gave a belt bright with purple." With him, 
purple is applied to anything opaque and dark-gleaming, 
without any distinct implication of color. His sense for 
colors in general, as Gladstone remarks, seems little devel- 
oped. He seems to know them primarily as approximations 
to, or degrees of, black and white ; but within his limits he 
makes astonishing poetic use of them, and his natural im- 
agery has a vitality of color that surpasses any effect mere 
variety can give. 

277-8. Refers to the fatal expedition of the "Seven 
against Thebes." See iEschylus' tragedy, based on the 
legend. 

286. The hosts are, by a poetic convention, supposed to 
have stopped fighting in order to witness the meeting of the 
two heroes. 

289 ff. Read Dante's noble description of his meeting 
with Sordello, followed by the terrible invective against 
Italy, where kindness to guests and kindred was no longer 
found. Purg., VI. 68. 

291. Pope reverses Homer's meaning, which seems to 
imply, half-humorously perhaps, that Glaucus' kindly feeling 
made him for the nonce foolishly generous. 

295. The episode is now ended, and the narrative, broken 
off at 1. 146, is resumed. 

297. Scaean : the main gate of the city, looking toward 
the Grecian camp. To its tower, the Trojan women had 
come to watch the conflict. 

298. beech-tree : oak-tree in Homer. 

307. Priam, like other eastern princes, had several wives 



160 POPE'S ILIAD 

and many sons. All (with two or three exceptions), lived 
together in patriarchal fashion, like the families described 
in Genesis. 

322. Homer says merely, " honey-sweet wine." 

329. Pope substitutes this little temperance-homily for 
Homer's words, "bring me no honey -hearted wine, my 
mother, lest thou cripple me of my courage, and I be forget- 
ful of my might." . 

337. That is, it is unfit for him to make oblation with 
unwashed hands. Cf . Exodus, xxx. 20. 

339. Sacrifices are offered in the Iliad much as in the Old 
Testament. 

349. In Book III., Paris had been overcome in a duel 
with Menelaus, but had been snatched from the battle-field 
by Yenus. 

362-3. Sidon was an older city than Tyre (see n. 1. 274), 
and its inhabitants were far-famed for luxurious merchan- 
dise. (See 1 Kings v. 6; Ezek. xxvii.) According to 
Herodotus, Paris, in returning home from Sparta, was car- 
ried out of his course by storms. 

367. Homer seldom indulges in pure description, but 
usually makes his descriptive details expressive accompani- 
ments of some life-like, dramatic situation. 

371. Palladian dome : A temple of Pallas (Minerva) . 

372. Theano: sister of Hecuba, and wife of Antenor, 
one of Priam's wisest friends. 

375. These pious cries were intended as responses in a 

kind of liturgical service. 

382. That is, ' never harnessed for work.' 

394-401. Guess the character of Paris. Where ought he 

to be ? Is he wholly foppish and selfish ? See the closing 

lines of the book. 



Book VI. NOTES. 161 

395. ten cubits: eleven in Homer. A cubit was, roughly, 
about one foot and a half. Xenophon speaks of a lance 
fifteen cubits in length. A Prussian Uhlan's lance is about 
ten feet long. Homer's circumstantial descriptions do much 
to visualize his scenes for us. 

396. ringlets : meant to hold the head of the spear in 
place, and to prevent the shaft from splitting. 

398-401. An excellent description of a dilettante warrior, 
but an amplification of Homer, who means that Paris is 
taking delight in caring for his weapons, as a hunter now 
does for his gun. 

403. As they stand weaving at the loom. 

406. Hector, unaware of Aphrodite's interference (see 
1. 349), supposes Paris has withdrawn from the field in 
anger at the manifest disapproval of his countrymen (Book 
III. 319 of the original). 

409. close: secret; cf. closet. 

424-5. Symonds writes, "Helen is one of those ideal 
creatures of the fancy, over which time, space, and cir- 
cumstance, and moral probability, exert no sway. It would 
be impossible to conceive of her except as inviolably beau- 
tiful and young." She is in Homer, not so much the fatal 
and guilty siren of the later poets, as the embodiment of the 
ideal beauty of woman, with all its fascination, whether 
tragic or happy. Homer emphasizes only her more win- 
ning and womanly traits, and in the Odyssey restores her 
radiant as ever to Menelaus. In so doing, the poet chafes 
our modern morality. But it was both the glory and the 
fault of Greek genius to worship the beautiful so intensely 
as to endanger the good ; though most of their great works 
of art exemplify Goethe's saying that beauty is higher than 
goodness, for it includes goodness. 



162 POPE'S ILIAD. 

427. Once before (in Book III.) Paris lias made this self- 
same excuse. His sanguine, volatile, and vacillating char- 
acter, in both its good and weak points, is somewhat like 
Tito's in George Eliot's novel. 

436. Helen (in Book III.) has expressed the like self- 
abhorrence. 

450 ff. Hector is represented as an unselfish patriot and 
husband, in contrast to Paris, whose thoughts are instinc- 
tively self-centred. 

458. A true premonition. This is his last visit to Troy; 
he dies in battle a few days later. 

467. Astyanax : the only son of Hector and Andromache. 
The name, which seems to mean ' prince,' or ' defender of 
the city,' was given to the child in honor of his father, 
Hector means ' prop,' or * stay.' 

491. Hector, after his failure to find his wife at home, is 
hurrying to the battle-field, when he meets her, and for the 
last time, by chance. " In the present episode," says Pope, 
..." Homer has assembled all that love, grief, and compas- 
sion could inspire." Pope himself appears to advantage in 
his rendering of the scene. 

492. the joyful fair: it is to Pope's credit that in his 
Homer, he employs such expressions less often than in 
his own work. 

526-33. One of the many incidental pictures that touch 
our quieter and better feelings, and give to the episode its 
sustained tenderness of spirit. 

536. Homer has " amid their kine of shambling (swing- 
paced) gait." 

539. Hippoplacia : more correctly Hyppoplacia, a name 
for Thebe, the birthplace of Andromache. 



Book VI. NOTES. 163 

545. Pope has rendered well the beautiful original. 

570. For the Greek conception of destiny, see Introd., 
p. lxvii. 

583. Drawing water is an important duty of women and 
slaves in Oriental countries ; cf . the Old Testament phrase, 
" hewers of wood and drawers of water." 

589. According to later tradition, Andromache became 
the prize of Neoptolemus, Achilles' son. 

591. Cf. Milton's " monumental oak." II Pensoroso, 135. 

602. Only two other passages of the Iliad mention kiss- 
ing, and both refer merely to acts of suppliants. 

606-7. Cf . Burns's Lament of Mary Queen of Scots, 

" My son! my son! may kinder stars 
Upon thy fortune shine ; 
And may those pleasures gild thy reign 
That ne'er would blink on mine." 

Here, as throughout the scene, Hector's thoughts anrl 
prayers are for others, not himself. He had his human 
faults; but as father, husband, and patriot — 

" He was a verray parfit gentil knight." 

626. Characteristic Greek and Oriental fatalism. Cf. 
Fitzgerald's version of the Bubdiydt. 

" The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes, 
But Right or Left, as strikes the Player, goes ; 
And He that toss'd you down into the field, 
He knows about it all — he knows — HE knows ! " 

632. That is, drive away care by work; with the words 
of the original, Plutarch says Brutus sought to turn aside 
the anxious inquiries of Portia, when he was brooding over 
the plan to slay Caesar. 



164 POPE'S ILIAD, 

648. He has no gloomy forebodings. 

652. wanton: unrestrained, exuberant. The point of 
resemblance between Paris and the stallion is the gay spirits 
which come from youth, beauty, high feeding, at the expense 
of sober sense. Cf. 2 Henry IV., I. i. 9 ff. 

665. Paris wants to apologize; he thinks Hector has 
stayed for him. 

667-9. Hector steels his brother with well-meant praise. 

676-9. Homer's ending is simple and strong : " But let us 
be going; all this will we make good hereafter, if Zeus 
ever vouchsafe us to set before the heavenly gods that 
are for everlasting the cup of deliverance in our halls, 
when we have chased out of Troyland the well-greaved 
Achaians." 

Homer never ends a scene with that startling and sensa- 
tional abruptness now so much in vogue, but prefers a 
quiet and restful close ; and, while avoiding the over-detail 
which satiates, always suggests fully a picture which 
the fascinated imagination craves to go on remember- 
ing. 

"Of all the Iliad this incomparable book attains the 
grandest heights of narrative and composition, of action 
and pathos. Nowhere else have we so perfect a gallery 
of types of human character; the two pairs, Hector and 
Paris, Helen and Andromache, in their truthfulness and 
contrast, form a group as subtly as they are broadly drawn ; 
while, on the other hand, the 'battle vignettes' with which 
the book opens, and the culmination of the scenes of war 
in the meeting of Glaukos and Diomedes, set before us 
with unequalled vivacity the pride of life of an heroic age, 
the refinement of feeling which no fierceness of fight can 



Book XXII. NOTES. 165 

barbarize, in the most consummate manner of the ' great 
style.'" — Leaf. 

This eulogy is, perhaps, a little too sweeping. Great as 
the sixth book is, it lacks the variety, dramatic vigor, and 
strong, direct feeling of the first book, and its art seems 
much more conscious, especially iu the elaborated pathetic 
effects. But the likeness of its sentiment to that of our own 
literature makes it appeal to modern readers more readily 
than any other book. 



BOOK XXII. 

1. "In the swift action of ,this twenty-second book," 
says Professor Jebb, " we can recognize at least four gen- 
eral traits as preeminently Homeric. (1) The outlines of 
character are made distinct in deed, in dialogue, and in aud- 
ible thought. (2) The divine and human agencies are inter- 
fused ; the scene passes rapidly from earth to Olympus, 
and again to earth; the gods speak the same language as 
men, — noble, yet simple and direct; the gods are super- 
human in might, — human in love, in hate, and in guile. 
(3) Each crisis of the narrative is marked by a powerful 
simile from nature. (4) The fiercest scenes of war are 
brought into relief against profoundly touching pictures of 
domestic love and sorrow." 

3. " Getting off the mingled dust and sweat." 

Chapman, 

6. The Greeks probably held their shields above their 
heads, in the manner of the Eoman testudo, as a protection 



166 POPE'S ILIAD. 

against missiles from the wall. Homer says merely, " Set- 
ting shields to shoulders." 

37. Cf. Milton, Par. Lost, i. 706. 

39. Orion's dog : Sirius, the brightest star in the constel- 
lation of the clog (Canis Major); so called because it pre- 
ceeds Orion, named after the mighty hunter. It rose with 
the sun in midsummer, and was supposed to cause the evil 
effects of that season. Hence the Roman name canicular 
and our " dog-days." weighs : oppresses. 

43. " With how much dreadful Pomp is Achilles here in- 
troduced ? How noble, and in what bold colors hath he 
drawn the blazing of his Arms, the Rapidity of his Advance, 
the Terror of his Appearance, the Desolation arouud him ; 
but, above all, the certain Death attending all his motions 
and his very looks ; what a crowd of terrible Ideas in this 
one Simile ! But immediately after this follows the moving 
Image of the two aged Parents, trembling, weeping, and 
imploring their Son ! This is succeeded again by the 
dreadful, gloomy picture of Hector, all on fire, obstinate, 
bent on Death, and expecting Achilles, admirably painted in 
the Simile of the Snake rolled up in his Den and collecting 
his Poisons. And indeed thro' the whole Book the wonder- 
ful Contrast and Opposition of the Moving and of the Ter- 
rible is perpetually kept, each heightening the other. I can't 
find words to express how so great Beauties affect me." — 
Pope. - 

45. obtests : entreats. 

57. Cf. i. 6. 

69. his daughter: Laothoe, one of Priam's wives. Lele- 
gia: the land of the Leleges, on the coast of the Troad and 
neighboring islands. 



Book XXII. NO TES. 167 

71. The banks of the river Styx (lit. ' Hateful') in the 
underworld. By the Styx the gods swore their most solemn 
oaths. Cf. Milton, P. L. ii. 577. 

** Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate." 

97. Later traditions fulfil this foreboding. 

99. Cf. Old Siward's remarks on his son's honorable 
death, Macbeth, V. viii. 43. 

130. Coiled up near or upon his hole, is probably Homer's 
implication. If in his hole, the snake would probably re- 
main there in safety, instead of coiling for attack. 

132. Snakes are still popularly supposed to derive their 
poison from feeding on such herbs. 

137. Homer says, 

" Sore troubled, he spake to his great heart." 

44 These audible thoughts are usually in the nature of com- 
ments on the main point of the situation, and as such might 
have been made by a sympathetic bystander ; they are com- 
parable to the utterances of the Chorus in Greek tragedy." 
— Jebb. Cf. our convention of the soliloquy. 

139. Hector's troubled thoughts at this fearful moment, 
bring his mind to a standstill, as rage did Achilles' in Book I. 

140-1. When the frightened Trojans gave way at the 
shouting of Achilles over the trench, Polydamas advised 
withdrawal into Troy. Hector's opposite counsel prevailed. 

140. In this soliloquy, Hector makes no mention of his 
concern for the welfare of others, partly because the poet 
has already caused him to do so fully in Book VI. But see 
Gladstone's summary of his character. " His courage is far 
from perfect, and there are in him veins of both vain-glory 
and rashness. But he is pious towards the gods, affection- 



168 POPE'S ILIAD. 

ate and beloved in his domestic relations, a laborious and 
unselfish patriot, laden with more responsibility than he 
well can bear. At the latest moment, driven to bay, he 
recovers a perfect manhood, and dies the hero's death." 
Probably, however, neither Homer nor his auditors thought 
of impeaching Hector's courage. See note onl. 180. 

158. Helen and the treasure she carried with her to 
Troy. 

167-70. See Professor Jebb's words: "Each crisis of 
the narrative is marked by a powerful simile from nature." 
Here the simile is of peaceful things, such as neither Hec- 
tor nor Troy shall ever see again. Cf . Dante's unequalled 
power to suggest things terrible through the medium of 
things bright and beautiful. See his description of his 
first glimpse of the fraudulent counsellors tormented by 
fire : 

"As the rustic who rests him on the hill in the season 
when , . . the fly yieldeth to the gnat [that is, in the sum- 
mer twilight], sees many fireflies down in the valley, per- 
haps there where he makes his vintage and ploughs, — with 
as many flames all the eighth pit was resplendent." — Hell, 
xxvi. 25. 

180. Hector's sudden flight is one of the most puzzling 
incidents of the Iliad. " In a saga or a chanson de geste, in 
an Arthurian romance, in a Border ballad, in whatever poem 
or tale answers in our Northern literature, however feebly, 
to Homer, this flight round the walls of Troy would be an 
absolute impossibility. Under the eyes of his father, his 
mother, his countrymen, Hector flies — the gallant Hector, 
'a very perfect, gentle knight' — from the onset of a single 
foe. . , , But Homer's world, Homer's chivalry, Homer's 



Book XXII. NO TES. 169 

ideas of honor, were all unlike those of the Christian and 
Northern world." — Lang. 

Bat we must not forget that Achilles, impelled by the most 
passionate desire for vengeance, equipped in the blazing 
armor forged by Hephaestus, and visibly favored in all ways 
by the gods, is an incarnation of might before which no 
man can stand. Heaven is warring, as it were, in his behalf, 
as Jehovah did for the Israelites. Remember how Achilles' 
mere shout set the whole Trojan army in flight. (See Introd. , 
p. xxxviii.) Hector's panic is like that we experience in a 
nightmare, when the will is powerless. Deeply absorbed 
in his troubled thoughts, he looks up and beholds Achilles 
sweeping toward him, and before he can summon together 
his scattered faculties, the terrible vision fills his whole 
imagination. 

189. fore-right: right to the fore, straight on. 

194. Raised the dust as they sped along the road that ran 
round the city a short distance from the wall. 

201. Homer, "broad, beautiful washing-troughs of 
stoue." 

241. Tritonia : Trito-born, a word of doubtful origin. 

247. Scent the fawn. 

257. The only simile in Homer taken from a dream. 

271. "The Eternal— . . . 

Hung forth in Heav'n his golden scales." 

Milton, P. L., IV. 996. 

276. Hector is doomed to die. 

291. Delphobus : Hector's favorite brother. Minerva 
comes to lure Hector within striking distance of Achilles. 

294. This deception, and her return of Achilles' spear to 
that hero, shock our modern taste. But we must try, in 



170 POPE'S ILIAD. 

order to do the poet justice, to take the view of a Homeric 
audience, and to make the same allowances for its mistaken 
conceptions of right and wrong and divine justice, as we do 
for some of those of the Old Testament patriarchs. The 
gods are supposed to have righteous ends in mind, and may 
adopt any means whatsoever to fulfil them, — a dangerous 
belief, but one not confined to Homer. It is no shame to 
Achilles, but a great glory, to receive their aid ; for his piety, 
ideality, and championship of the right cause merit their 
favor, as Troy and her champions do their vengeance. 
Achilles is like a man who, by his goodness and integrity, 
has won such powerful friends that he can easily and grace- 
fully defeat any enemy. There is, besides, from other pas- 
sages of the Iliad, no doubt but that he is a far more power- 
ful warrior than Hector ; therefore, the intent here muet be 
so to enhance his natural prowess by the magic of divine 
favor working for justice, that everything must fall before 
it, as the walls of Jericho did before the trumpets of Joshua, 
or Goliath before the arm of David. This interpretation 
relieves Hector from all charges of cowardice ; he flees, as 
it were, before divine vengeance visibly incarnate in man. 
Compare this scene with that at the close of Book XVI., 
where Hector strikes down Patroclus, after that hero had 
been dazed by the blow of Apollo, and wounded from behind 
by the spear thrust of Euphorbos. 

336. Before Patroclus' death, Achilles preferred to spare 
lives rather than take them. See the prose version, Book 
XXI. 97, on this point, and for one of the most mournful and 
fatalistic passages in the Iliad. 

344. Cf. Henry VIII., ii. 22. 

348. Xanthus, Achilles' immortal chariot-horse, had told 



Book XXII. NOTES. 171 

that hero his death was near at hand, and Thetis had pre- 
viously said it was to follow close upon Hector's. "Stung 
as he is," says Mr. Symonds, " by remorse and by the sor- 
row for Patroclus, which does not unnerve him, but rather 
kindles his whole spirit to a flame, we are prepared to see 
him fierce even to cruelty. But when we know that in the 
midst of the carnage he is himself moving a dying man, 
when we remember that he is sending his slain foes like 
messengers before his face to Hades, when we keep the 
warning words of Thetis and Xanthus in our minds, then 
the grim frenzy of Achilles becomes dignified. The world 
is in a manner over for him, and he appears the incarna- 
tion of disdainful anger and revengeful love, the conscious 
scourge of God and instrument of destiny." 
371. resulting: Latin resultare, to spring back. 

391. Jove's bird : the eagle. 

392. truss : to pounce upon and seize firmly. 
395. fourfold cone : four-plated helm. 

397. Vulcanian frame : framed or forged by Vulcan™ 

399. Hesper : the evening star. 

405-6. Hector confronts his foe in Achilles' own armor, 
taken from the body of Patroclus, and Achilles probably 
knows its weak points. This coincidence, and the likeness 
between the death of Patroclus and that of Hector, can 
hardly be intended otherwise than as the working out of 
poetic justice. 

436. prevalence : prevailing power. 

437. "As surely as I can not eat thee myself, so surely 
the dogs shall eat thee," is Mr. Leaf's interpretation of 
Homer's words. Cf . Hamlet's cry : 



172 POPE'S ILIAD. 

" Now could I drink hot blood, 
And do such bitter business as the day 
Would quake to look on." 

452. According to later traditions, Achilles was slain by 
a poisoned arrow guided from Paris' bow by Apollo. The 
Iliad has no hint of the fable that Achilles was invulnerable 
except as to his heel ; in fact, he is once wounded in the arm 
by Asteropaios. (See Book XXI.) 

466-70. " The admiration expressed for the dead body is 
a thoroughly Greek touch. ... On the other hand, the 
wounding of the helpless corpse strikes us as peculiarly 
brutal; but it was probably not done out of mere wanton- 
ness. In the first place, such mutilation would render the 
ghost harmless ; and, in the second, each of the Greeks had a 
claim, for the sake of some kinsman slain by Hector, to a 
share in the blood revenge." — Leaf. 

497. nervous: sinewy. 

500. "One of the Scholiasts says that it was a Thessa- 
lian custom to drag the body of a murderer round the grave 
of his victim, so that Achilles here and in XXIV. 416 [508, 
Pope] follows his national tradition." — Leaf. 

510. The Trojans have been watchingthe scene from the 
wall, the Greeks from the field, and the gods from Olympus. 
Homer gives us every point of view, and appeals to all emo- 
tions. Like Sophocles, "He saw life steadily and saw it 
whole." 

610. The astrology is Pope's. 

640. " The idea seems to be that by orphanage a child is 
shown to be no favorite of the gods, and may be insulted 
with impunity. This idea survives to the present day in 
Albania." — Leaf. 



Book XXIV. NOTES. 173 



BOOK XXIV. 

" The supreme beauty of the last book of the Iliad, and 
the divine pathos of the dying fall, in which the tale of 
strife and blood passes away, are above all words of praise. 
The meeting of Priam and Achilles, the kissing of the deadly 
hands, and the simplicity of infinite sadness over man's fate 
in Achilles' reply, mark the high tide of a great epoch of 
poetry. In them we feel that the whole range of suffering 
has been added to the unsurpassed presentment of action 
which, without this book, might seem to be the crowning 
glory of the Iliad. 1 ' — Leaf. 

25. monument : a funeral mound. 

34. Hermes is the object of wilVd. This is the first allu- 
sion to Hermes as a thievish god. 

38-41. According to later tradition, Paris, acting as judge 
in a contest of beauty among Juno, Minerva, and Venus, 
awarded the prize (the apple of discord) to the last. See 
Bulfinch, p. 256 ; Galay, p. 285. Many of these post-Homeric 
legends, good as they are, mar the beauty and dignity of the 
poems, and care should be taken not to identify the two. 

41, Cyprus, the Mediterranean island, where Venus was 
worshipped. 

96. azure queen: Thetis. Both " azure" and "blue- 
haired " (112) are Pope's epithets. 

99. Iris: Goddess of the rainbow, and messenger of 
Jupiter and his wife, as Mercury (Hermes) is of all Olympus 
" Although she is but a sketch, she is one of those sketches 
in which the touch of the incomparable master is as clearly 



174 POPE'S ILIAD. 

seen as in any work of the most complete development. Only 
the hand that drew Nausicaa (in the Odyssey) on earth, 
could have drawn Iris in the skies. She seems lighter than 
the air itself upon her golden wings ; and the poet always 
employs the full resources of pure dactylic verse to signify 
the elastic bound with which she starts upon her missions. 
But with all her lightness, she plunges 'like lead' through 
the waters of the deep, because her swiftness is more essen- 
tial to her even than her lightness. In full keeping with 
these, so to speak, physical qualities, is her ready, nimble 
mind, her incessant labor for some purpose of good, not of 
ill, and the total absence of every dark, or gross, or mali- 
cious feature from the really sweet delineation." — Glad- 
stone. 

103. Homer mentions the island of Samothrace, not 
Samos. 

112. The Nereids. 

122. sable shade means simply a dark-hued robe or veil. 

146. Had Hermes stolen Hector's body, Achilles would 
have lost the glory of receiving a rich ransom for returning 
it. 

249. deathful : probably the epithet is used in a double 
sense; his eye has glared death at many adversaries, and 
also beheld them slain. 

273. present: visibly presenting herself . 

285. chargers : large dishes (obs.). Cf. Matt. xiv. 8. 

289. All these treasures seemed too little compared with 
getting his dead son back to Troy. 

322. " Troilus," says Grote, "is only once named in the 
Iliad . . . ; but his youth, beauty, and untimely end, made 
him an object of great interest with subsequent poets." 



Book XXIV. N TES. 175 

Chaucer, Shakspere, and Dryden have used the story of 
Troilus, each decidedly in his own way. 

331-340. Pope confuses certain details of the original, 
Which is obscure, but his description is throughout consis- 
tent with itself. 

333. cabinet: for Homer's 'wicker carriage/ in which 
the gifts were placed. 

335. box: boxwood. 

344. Mysia : for "the Mysians," a people near Troy. 

345. Of the two cars, one was drawn by mules to convey 
the presents; the other by horses, for Priam and the 
herald. 

359. god: Zeus. 

375. Literally, "he stood in the midst of the court" 
(where the altar of Zeus was placed), " and prayed and 
poured forth wine." 

384-93. Omens from the right (dexter) were of good 
presage. Cf. our word 'sinister.' "This is the only fore- 
shadowing in Homer of the place which the eagle was to 
take in later mythology as the especial bird of Zeus " (Leaf) . 

390 Percnos : the black eagle. 

417-20. Literally, " Straightway beneath his feet he 
bound on his fair sandals, golden, divine, that bore him 
over the wet sea and over the boundless land with the 
breathings of the wind." 

417-26. Be sure to compare this passage with a similar 
one in Milton's Paradise Lost, V. 266 ff. Milton often adapts 
passages of Homer. 

418. incumbent: resting on. 

430. Homer says, " at the river," probably the Scamander. 

431. Homer speaks of "the great barrow," or funeral 



176 POPE'S ILIAD, 

mound, of Ilus, the grandfather of Priam; whence the 
name Ilium. 

457. lines : lineaments. 

477. " Notice how delicately Hermes lets Priam see that 
he knows him" (Leaf). 

529. latent: hidden, disguised. 

552. Achilles' 'tent,' or 4 hut,' seems much like an 
Achaean palace. "It has a hall, with forecourt, vestibule, 
and colonnades, and is at times spoken of as a house " (Leaf) . 
See Jebb's Introduction, pp. 57-62. 

572* his son : Neoptolemus, who after his father's death 
came to Troy and achieved great renown. See the Odyssey, 
Book XI., 466-540, — one of the supreme passages in Homer. 

598 633. " The whole scene between Achilles and Priam, 
when the latter comes to the Greek camp for the purpose of 
redeeming the body of Hector, is at once the most pro- 
foundly skilful, and yet the simplest and most affecting 
passage in the Iliad, . . . Observe the exquisite taste of 
Priam in occupying the mind of Achilles, from the outset, 
with the image of his father; in gradually introducing th a 
parallel of his own situation; and, lastly, mentioning Hec- 
tor's name when he perceives that the hero is softened, 
and then only in such a manner as to flatter the pride of 
the conqueror. . . . The whole passage defies translation ; 
for there is that about the Greek which has no name, but 
which is of so fine and ethereal a subtley that it can only bo 
felt in the original, and is lost in an attempt to transfuse it 
into another language." — H. N. Coleridge. 

705. Literally: " Therefore now stir my heart no more 
amid my troubles, lest I leave not even thee in peace, old 
sire, within my hut, albeit thou art ray suppliant, and lest I 



Book XXIV. NO TES. 177 

transgress the commandment of Zeus." Achilles' grief is 
almost over-mastering, and Priam's repeated allusions to 
the father whom he will never see again are more than 
he can bear. He finds some relief apparently to the shock 
by sudden physical motion ; for he "leapt like a lion through 
the door of the house," to busy himself in work. Mr. Leaf 
brings out another probable aspect of Achilles' sorrow: 
"This outburst on the part of Achilles shows the intense 
struggle through which he is passing. It is all he can do to 
control himself; and he feels that he will not be able to do 
so at all unless he is left to act in his own way, without 
being either hurried or doubted, as Priam's words would 
seem to imply." 

717. Achilles' irritability may well be contrasted with 
Macbeth's nervousness (in Act V. sc. 3) as regards the char- 
acters of the two men : Achilles is "like a person in whom 
grief is hasty" (Dante); Macbeth is a criminal over- 
wrought through the sleeplessness caused by remorse and 
fear. Contrast also the swift development in nobleness of 
the one hero with that in criminality of the other. Achilles 
is ideal in the two chief senses of the word, — typical and 
noble; Macbeth is, at the end, only typical, though pro- 
foundly so. 

740-5. Mr. Symoncls, with perhaps a slight touch of his 
characteristic exaggeration, says : " Fraternity in arms played 
for the Greek race the same part as the idealization of 
women for the knighthood of feudal Europe. . . . The 
Christian chivalry of mercy, forgiveness, gentleness, and 
long-suffering, which claims the title of charity in armor, 
was a post-Homeric ideal." But, he adds, there was a chiv- 
alry of friendshii) which mingled comradely love with mili- 



178 POPE'S ILIAD. 

tary and patriotic passion, and became "an enthusiastic 
habit of soul," "which spread through all the states of 
Hellas," and appeared, " during the last struggle of Hellenic 
freedom," " in the splendid heroism of the Three Hundred, 
who fell together face forward to the Macedonian lances at 
Chaeronea." "The fruit which friendship bore among the 
Greeks was courage in the face of danger, indifference to 
life when honor was at stake, patriotic ardor, the love of 
liberty, and lion-hearted rivalry in battle." 

Achilles' prayer to Patroclus to forgive him for restoring 
the body of his slayer is the last and perfecting act of this 
most wonderful of friendships. The rest of the poem is 
devoted to the ransoming and burial of their common en- 
emy. Cf. Dante, Inferno V., 65, " The great Achilles, who 
at the end fought with love." 

745. manes : not Homer's word. Why ? 

757-779. Niobe, the wife of Amphion, King of Thebes, 
boasted herself superior, because of her many children, to 
Latona, — who* had but two, Apollo and Diana, — and was 
punished as here described. "Achilles means, 'you may 
well eat, without appearing hard of heart ; for even Niobe 
ate in her grief, and she is actually the type of faithful 
mourning, and chosen by the gods themselves to embody 
endless grief before men forever.'" — Leaf. 

762. Cynthia : Diana, so-called because born on Mount 
Cynthus, in the island of Delos. 

773. Like the pillar of salt of Lot's wife, Niobe's rock is 
still pointed out to the traveller. It is on Mount Sipylos, 
near Smyrna, in Lydia. "The figure thus alluded to is a 
sort of high relief against a background of natural rock. 
The shape is thrice the human height, and some two hun- 



Book XXIV. NOTES. 179 

dred feet from the ground. A trickling spring is said to 
give the impression of falling tears." — W. C. Lawton. 

775. Achelous : a river of Lydia. 

776. watr'y fairies correspond to Homer's " water- 
nymphs." 

805. careful: full of care. Cf. Milton, Par. Lost, II. 
302,— 

" Deep on his front engraven 
Deliberation sat and public care ; 
And princely counsel in his face yet shone, 
Majestic though in ruin." 

832. aspire : rise. 

870. Cassandra : daughter of Priam 

898. pomp: the funeral procession. 

900. choir: that is, the professional mourners. 

942. Mr. Leaf interprets Hecuba's speech thus : "Though 
Achilles has dealt with thee so far more harshly than with 
my other sons, yet the gods have turned this very thing to 
thine honor; for they have kept thy body fresh, all out- 
raged though it was." 

962. "Helen is throughout the Iliad a genuine lady, 
graceful in motion and speech, noble in her associations, 
full of remorse for a fault for which higher powers seem 
responsible, yet grateful and affectionate towards those with 
whom that fault had connected her." — H. N. Coleridge. 

Speaking of her lament over the body of Hector, Symonds 
says, "It would have been impossible to enhance more 
worthily than thus the spirit of courtesy and knightly kind- 
ness which was in Hector, — qualities, in truth, which, to- 
gether with his loyalty to Andromache, endeared the 
champion of the Trojans to chivalry, and placed Hector 



180 POPE'S ILIAD. 

upon the list of worthies beside King Arthur and Godfrey of 
Bouillon." 

988. "And here we part with Achilles, at the moment 
best calculated to exalt and purify our impression of his 
character. We had accompanied him through the efferves- 
cence, undulations, and final subsidence of his stormy pas- 
sions. We now leave him in repose, and under the full 
influence of the more amiable affections ; while our admira- 
tion of his great qualities is chasteued by the reflection that, 
within a few short days, the mighty being in whom they 
w r ere united was himself to be cut off suddenly in the full 
vigor of their exercise. . . . The frequent and touching 
allusions, interspersed throughout the Iliad, to the speedy 
termination of its hero's course, and the moral on the vanity 
of human life which they indicate, are among the fiuest evi- 
dences of the spirit of ethic unity by which the whole frame- 
work of the poem is united." — Mure. 

1015-6. Literally translated the last line of the Iliad is, 
"Thus held they funeral for Hector, Tamer of Horses." 
Cowper, speaking of the simplicity and majesty of this end- 
ing, says, " It is like the exit of a great man out of company 
whom he has entertained magnificently ; neither pompous 
nor familiar; not contemptuous, but without much cere- 
mony." 



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